Off up the cut.

We had the weekend above Derwent Mouth Lock, watching the boats go past. And there were a few… I don’t think we’ve seen so many at once for quite some time! I reckon there would have been a bit of a queue waiting for CRT to open Aston Lock at around 4 o’clock on Sunday afternoon.

We got off handily this morning, just after nine. It was fine and sunny but a bit cool for a start.

I don’t think we’ve ever seen Shardlow looking so good – and the moorings outside the pubs so empty!


Dobson’s Boatyard


The Clock Warehouse and Shardlow Lock

The clock is slow…


Shardlow Lock is only shallow, 4 foot something, but they get progressively deeper as the canal heads up the valley. By the time I’d filled it there was a boat waiting to go down so I could leave a gate open.

Aston Lock was next, this is the one we’d been waiting for as the repairs had overrun by a few weeks.

Nice shiny new lock gates installed.



Off up the Trent Valley


We dropped lucky at Weston Lock, arriving just as two boats were leaving. As it turned out this was the only one in our favour today.

Above Weston the canal is squeezed between the river and the rising ground of Aston Hill. It’s a very pretty stretch before the landscape opens out again into flat farmland on the floodplain.

Meg was curled up in her favourite cruising spot…


I thought we’d have Swarkestone Lock empty as we had to avoid a pair of oncoming boats at Cuttle Bridge, just a half-mile away. But we caught up with a chap just finishing off filling it as we arrived. I guess that’s the reason we’ve had to turn three out of four today.

Swarkestone Lock, nearly 11 feet deep.




Out of the lock we pulled in almost opposite the moorings in the remaining stub of the Derby Canal.

I’d arranged with the local coal merchant to deliver a load of smokeless to us here in the morning, but, as we’d made it here sooner than expected, I gave him a ring and he brought it this afternoon instead. It suited us both; he’s now got a free morning and we can get away early again.

It looks like the weather is staying fine, at least for this week. So we should make good progress up the Trent and Mersey.

Locks 4, miles 6½
½