A Soar night

After a few days on The Erewash we make an early start and pull pins at 07.40 and head down through Trent lock and out onto The river Trent.

On The river Soar and its not long before we get to Kegworth deep lock. This lock was in the news last year when a hire boat had a slight accident.

This hire boat was coming down in the lock and got caught on the cill . Luckily there were no serious injuries and the boat was soon re-floated.There are markers on every lock to tell you where the cill is and signs that warn you to keep forward of the cill marker.  The only thing I don't understand is why are the warning signs on the balance beam behind you when descending and not on the ones in front of you in the direction that you are looking. No doubt someone out there knows why ?.

After a sort of peaceful night near Zouch  (under the flight path to East Midland Airport) we winded and made our way back down the locks and towards The Trent and Mersey canal at Shardlow. We got some diesel at the boatyard below Kegworth flood lock which was only 65 pence per litre, just as well as we needed 90 litres. Its the cheapest we have paid for a long time.

Below the bottom lock on The River Soar we encountered a bit of a sad sight. It seems that Avante boat hire has gone bust and most of their boats are tied up here.They operated a time share scheme and it looks like a lot of people in the scheme are going to lose a large amount of money.We counted 18 boats here with a further 2 moored outside of Mercia marina.

Even floating log cabins need blacking.

We make it out onto The windy Trent and head up stream towards Sawley.

Just loved this boat name …

Back on the canal system after some time on the rivers and after passing up through Shardlow we picked up a lovely rural mooring for the night above Weston lock and cracked open a bottle or 3 of the red stuff……Just the ticket !!!


                                                             Happy Days