A coot was having a delousing session right outside the window!
Just a glimpse of Nottingham Castle between an old warehouse and modern apartments.
It was only 10 minutes to Castle Lock, a boat was just coming up as we arrived so we had a short wait.
The old FMC canal warehouse
Built in 1894 for the canal carrier Fellows, Morton and Clayton it received and despatched cargoes from across the country, and also from abroad from boats running up the Trent from the Humber estuary.
The Grade II listed building was a canal museum until 1998, it’s now a bar and restaurant.
There’s a sharp bend just through London Road Bridge, in front of the modern construction of the Premier Inn.
An area of wharfs and warehouses, located to the right of the picture below, has been redeveloped and is now a NHS Direct centre, car parking and the Premier Inn itself.
We topped up with water above Meadow Lane Lock, finishing off what we started yesterday at Cranfleet. Strangely enough, a boat coming up the lock here was the same one who’s arrival caused me to cut short the tank filling yesterday, and who we subsequently shared the locks with. They’d gone through Nottingham and moored down on the river for the night.
Mags waiting for me below Meadow Lane Lock
Leaving the city fringes the river runs past the extensive British Waterways warehousing and dock on the west bank. Or at least it did…
From a post nearly four years ago. There’s a lot of info about the site there too. All irrelevant now, of course. The site was cleared last year, and a new development is rapidly growing…
It’s called Trent Basin.
A little further on there’s a new rise and fall pontoon being installed on the north bank. I can’t find any information about it, but I hope it’s for public moorings.
Holme Lock was the first of the two “proper” Trent locks we did today.
Cormorants line up on the weir boom to dry their wings
They respect each other’s space, don’t they.
The hydro-electric plant being installed alongside the lock still isn’t fully commissioned yet. This means that the residential moorers are still taking up most of the visitor moorings after being moved across from the lock island. One of these is the barge Howling Gale, for sale at a very reasonable £125,000.
We had a half-hour wait, the duty lockie was dropping a group of cruisers down as we arrived, then he had to refill the lock for us.
Out of Holme Lock, another three boats waiting to go up.
It’s a fine stretch of river between Holme and Stoke, the next one down.
There’s not many crossings over the river, this one is Radcliffe Railway Viaduct
The lockie at Stoke Lock had been alerted to our imminent arrival and had the lock ready for us just as we arrived.
Just 10 minutes in the lock saw us heading off again, through the windy bits past Stoke Bardolph and Burton Joyce to Gunthorpe.
The Ferry Boat at Stoke Bardolph
One of only a handful of boats on the water today.
This egret has been watching the Olympic dressage competion…
We were aiming to moor on the popular pontoons just above Gunthorpe Bridge, and were pleased to see there was enough space for us, although on the inside of one of the pontoons.
A little later one boat moved, judging by the jollity they’d had a good lunch at The Unicorn, so we moved to the outside with a view across the river.
It’s been a good day today, but it’s all change tomorrow according to the forecast. Still, it’d be boring if it was sunny all of the time…
Locks 4, miles 12½
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