All together again as we head downriver

The rest of the Wash flotilla arrived yesterday afternoon, mainly blown into the moorings rather than with any finesse! There wasn’t much they could do as the wind was so strong.
In fact Clarence ended up going down the lock, having passed the moorings. They pulled in below and joined us for a brew, but the lockie wouldn’t let them stay there overnight so they had to head on down to Stoke Lock. In fact he did them a favour, but more of that later.

Last evening there was a lot of activity on the slalom course alongside the lock…





…but the rowing course was quiet. Too windy, probably.

We’d arranged with the lockie to drop down at 10:00, but a boat went down ahead so it was 35 minutes later when we were out of the lock and heading downstream.

Heading out of Holme Lock.
Oh, and for future reference, the visitor moorings have only temporarily been adopted for the long termers. They’ll be returning to the offside of the lock cut when work on the new hydro-electric plant in the old lock cut is completed. Good news.

They’ll have to wait for this lady to finish her business, though.

I said on Sunday that the only crossing between Lady Bay Bridge and Newark is at Gunthorpe. I should have said road crossing, the Radcliffe Viaduct carries the Nottingham to Grantham line across the river halfway to Stoke Lock.

Radcliffe Viaduct



It’s of two styles of construction to ensure the required clear span for the Trent Navigation Company. They insisted on 100 feet support to support, so the builders designed a cast iron navigable span, and cheaper brick arches for the rest of the crossing.



It’s also known as Rectory Junction Viaduct, presumably from the name of the rail junction just to the south.

We caught up with Derek and Sheila on NB Clarence below Stoke Lock. Having been forced to move on, they found a fine mooring on the sheltered pontoon. Much nicer than ours!

Stoke Lock dead ahead, NB Clarence on the pontoon moorings on the left

Leaving Stoke Lock, and then there were four…

From Holme we’d been in the lead, but Lesley and Joe kindly invited us to lay alongside Yarwood in the locks to make it easier for Mags (she doesn’t like the Trent locks), so it made sense for us to be tail-end charlie. It also gave me some good photo opportunities…

Big skies, wide river.


Near Burton Joyce

A grebe. Lots of them around here.

Under Gunthorpe road bridge!

Gunthorpe Lock was ready for us, the lock-keepers keep in touch with each other as they pass boats through.

Below Gunthorpe Lock

Now that’s a nice boat…

Egyptian geese and goslings

We had a five minute wait for Hazelford Lock, then dropped down, and, with a bit of shuffling about when three other boats left (something we said?), got ourselves moored for the night.

Hazelford Lock lower moorings

We were treated to an unexpected aerobatic display…

Unmistakeable silhouette!

From the way the pilot was chucking it around we decided that it must be a replica Spitfire, not a valuable WWII vintage aircraft. The Immelmann Turns were impressive…






We went for a walk with the dogs, returning along the river path.

Hazelford Weir

Above the weir is moored this Humber barge.


Selby Michael was owned by BOCM at Selby, and carried animal feeds. At 30m long and nearly 6m wide it would make a hell of a house-boat! I showed Mags the pics and fooled her into thinking I‘d made an offer on her (him?). She seemed quite taken with the idea.


Maybe I should seek out the current owner?

On to Newark tomorrow.

Locks 4, miles 12½