Uneventful up to Burton.

We had another early start, well for us before 10:00 is early! We passed the lengthsman’s house and workshop at Swarkestone at 09:15.


It was dull and cool first thing, and didn’t improve a great deal through the day. Just the odd shaft of sunshine spearing the overcast, but never enough to warm the air.

We had an hour to cruise before Stenson Lock, the last of the broad locks heading in this direction, passing the Ragley Boat Stop. I’ve heard good things about the quality of the food here, but we’ve never stopped.


Approaching Stenson Lock I was a bit confused to see the bottom gates open and a lot of water coming down through the paddles.
It turned out that there were two lockies on and they were flushing the vegetation out of the sluices and the chamber. They told me to stay onboard while they very gently brought us up. I had been hoping for a locking companion to share this one, it’s over 12’ deep and tends to bounce you about a bit. The usual trick of springing against the side with a rope led back to a bollard doesn’t work on very deep locks.

Halfway up…


We cruised past Mercia Marina with it’s fine display of daffs and the peaks of the latest development, through Willington and onward towards Burton on Trent.

Mercia Marina entrance.

Crossing the River Dove
The stone bridge that used to carry the Derby Road is still there, but the new dual carriageway just a few yards upstream goes over a modern concrete structure.

We stopped on the edge of town so I could pick up some bits and pieces I’d ordered for my latest project, had lunch then carried on, arriving behind another boat at Dallow Lock. He was a single hander so I helped him on his way, then we were in and up like a dose of salts. The joy of being back on narrow locks! We did our last one when we left Middlewich last May! Since then we’ve been negotiating broad locks, with precious little chance to share them after we left Skipton.

Dallow Lock


That was about it, another quarter-mile and we pulled in on the offside moorings at Shobnall Fields.

Lots more daffodils here!

Alrewas tomorrow, I guess. A stop at Shobnall Marina for diesel and gas first, though.

Locks 2, miles 10

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

Finally on the Trent and Mersey!

We left Sawley Cut this morning under grey skies and with a fresh westerly in our faces. First stop was the flood lock at the western end of the cut, designed to protect the marina and moorings from flood water. Normally open, it’s been closed for the last week or so as the river rose.

Heading up Sawley Cut
 

I’d had a look yesterday, and was dismayed to see the amount of rubbish accumulated above the top gates, pushed down on the wind. But this morning it was worse. A contractors boat had gone up in the afternoon and left the top gates open, so all that rubbish was now in the lock chamber!

I closed the gates and started to empty the lock of the 7” difference in level, only to have a large lump of timber trapped between them. So I had to refill it, open the gates to release the obstruction, then empty it again.

I just got the bottom gates open when a lockie turned up, and between us we sent most of the debris out of the lock and floating merrily off towards Sawley Locks, where it will finish up on the bywash weir.

Leaving the flood lock, with Mr and Mrs lockie getting the remains of the flotsam into the lock before flushing it off downstream.

The large but well-protected weir carries the river around Sawley Cut.

There’s a half-mile of open river to travel to Derwent Mouth and the entrance to the Trent and Mersey Canal, passing under the concrete bridge carrying the M1, then the fine steel bowstring bridge supporting the water mains between Derbyshire and Leicestershire.
The river forms the county boundary for several miles.

Derwent Mouth, with the River Derwent coming in from the right, The Trent from the left and dead ahead the calm waters of the canal.

When there’s been recent rainfall and the rivers are up the junction can have some very strong cross-currents as the two river flows collide. Not too bad today though now the levels have dropped.

Derwent Mouth Lock, Lock 1 of the Trent and Mersey Canal.




We’d intended to be here four or five months ago, but our enforced stay up in Yorkshire but the mockers on that plan. Still, better late than never. Just like that Scottish bloke said – “ The best-laid plans of mice and men…”. And boaters!

These first five locks, up to Burton Upon Trent, are wide, built to accommodate barges and to compete with the much earlier Trent Navigation. The navigation company were not amused and tried unsuccessfully to have James Brindley terminate the T&M at Burton, so traffic would still have to use the river.

We moored just above the lock, intending to stay here for the weekend. I’ve spoken to CRT and the repairs to Aston Lock are still scheduled for completion on Sunday afternoon. We’ll set off on Monday, aiming to stop at Swarkestone.

Locks 2, miles 1¼

A change of scenery.

The river was dropping quite rapidly, and by this morning it was down two feet, with the amber on the level marker just peaking above water.





So we decided to head off, upstream to Sawley. I toddled up to the large Tescos in Long Eaton before we left, to get the cupboards topped up, and had to get a taxi back ‘cause I’d bought too much! Still, that’ll keep us going for a week or two. Then we pulled down to the lock, filled with water while the lock filled, and dropped down to river level.

Looking back at the entrance to the Erewash Canal.
We decided to do a detour up the canal just to kill a bit of time, and finished up there for nearly a month! Still, there are worse places to be stuck.

It felt good to be out on the wide water again, a chance to wind up the old donk a bit and blow the cobwebs out of the exhaust.

Just a mile upriver we came to Sawley Locks, with the railway bridge crossing just below.



These paired locks are mechanised, and Lock 1, the right hand one, was nearly empty so we used that one.

The control panels have recently been changed to those new ones that seem to take ages…

Leaving the locks we noticed that the red light was on, indicating that the navigation was in flood – “Do Not Proceed”….

We didn’t go much further after clearing the locks, pulling in about halfway along Sawley Cut.

We’ll be here for a couple of days before pushing on to Shardlow.

Locks 2, miles 1½

We’re still here…

…but there’s light at the end of the tunnel!

The Trent is still up, around 4 feet higher at the entrance to Trent Lock than normal. There’s no way we’d fit under the lock-tail bridge, even if we were prepared to tackle the very fast-running river past the entrance.

We didn’t get too much rain over the weekend, unlike some parts of the country. But the Trent is a long river, tracing it’s source onto the fells to the north and east of Stoke-on-Trent. It has several tributaries upstream of us, and they’ll all be fetching water down. But it seems to have peaked last night at around 2.25m at the monitoring station at Shardlow (https://riverlevels.uk/river-trent-castle-donington-shardlow#.XI_vEfZ2vDc), which is about 1½ metres above the seasonal norm.
It’s dropped about 4” here since this time yesterday, and with no more rain forecast I would expect the rate of fall to improve.


The wind has dropped too. All being well we’ll be heading up to Shardlow and the Trent and Mersey Canal by the weekend.



Meanwhile we’re pottering about. We did take a short trip up the cut on Thursday, breezy but dry and bright. We turned around and came back to moor in the same spot.

Paul on Lizzie arrived on Friday after his trip up to the end of the Erewash Canal. He was the one who moored opposite us on the pontoons on the river a couple of weeks ago. The weather has screwed with his plans though, he’d recently bought the boat from Castle Marina in Nottingham, and arranged to have it hauled out and blacked early next week. He thought he’d have a few days out before heading back to the marina for the blacking, but the wind and rain has put his return trip back somewhat. He could still make it though, so long as the river co-operates.

We’re looking forward to getting going again, these enforced stops are not normally on our agenda!

Locks 0, miles 2

March is living up to it’s reputation…

I don’t think we’ve had such an extended period of very windy weather like we’re having now. As I write this we’re bouncing about a bit, even though we’re fairly sheltered up on the lower end of the Erewash Canal.

Windy river

We were joined over the weekend by barge Anja, a rather large 73 x 12½ foot Dutch luxemotor, built in 1929 and converted to a live-aboard at Brentford in the nineties.
A bit big for us, but very nice nonetheless.

We came up off the river on Tuesday afternoon, with more rain forecast the Trent was only going to higher and faster, and we were getting short of water anyway. It turned out to be a good move, it’s up another 5 or 6 inches this morning. We scraped under the lock tail bridge on Tuesday, today I don’t think we’d have fit.

I was a bit worried about the move, but it was easier than I expected. Once untied we drifted backwards on the brisk current, with just minor gentle bursts on the throttle to keep us from swinging across the flow. Then, as we got alongside the entrance to the canal I angled in and snuck under the bridge. I suppose getting into Keadby and West Stockwith Locks off the tidal Trent is good practice!

The level is up about 3 feet from when we arrived a week ago, but at least it’s not rising as fast as it did when we were here in November 2016. Now that was a little hairy!

Loki is still moored on the pontoons, I don’t think they’ll be moving for a few days now.

Nor will we in fact. We’ll toddle up to the first winding hole to turn around when we have a calm spell, then come back here to above the lock to wait until the river goes down a bit before heading to Sawley Cut.

Locks 1, miles about ⅛