Day 8 - Saturday July 8th - Loughborough to Shardlow 12 miles 4 furlongs, 7 locks, 6 hours 10 minutes
Rather late start today, 9.15am, after nipping round to the nearby corner shop for some milk. No sign of yesterday's oil leak, so hopefully that wont recur. Shared the first two locks (Loughborough and Bishop's Meadow), but had Zouch lock to myself. Through the next pound I passed three steam launches, then after rounding Devil's Elbow another eight appeared. Must be on the way to some rally I thought. As I rounded the bend just before Kegworth Deep, there were another seven, one of which I nearly demolished. He'd was in the process of pushing off when he realised it was right into my path. Fortunately I was going fairly slowly, so with a bit of hard reverse and a fairly drastic course change on his part he managed to get out of the way in time. I had caught up with a Canaltime boat waiting to go down, but before that there were two cruisers going down in the lock. Just as we were about to close the gates to refill the lock a narrowboat appeared followed by another plastic cruiser. After they had faffed around getting theirselves sorted and through the lock, the Canaltimer and I eventually got through. Kegworth Shallow was open, but there was another queue at Ratcliffe Lock. Got through that after a short delay. Redhill lock was open, so out on to the Trent. Sawley Locks were fairly busy, with a steady stream of boats in each direction meaning the lock keeper was kept at it working both locks. Sawley Flood lock was open, so straight on to Derwent mouth. I miss the old concrete footbridge over the Trent here, it helped to mark which bit of water was which, as the entrance to the Trent & Mersey is fairly inconspicuous. Shared Derwent Mouth Lock with one of the cruisers who had been ahead of me on the Soar, and tied up in Shardlow immediately after the first road bridge at 3.25pm. Had a lie down for a bit, then showered and wandered up to the Thai Kitchen for a takeaway. Afterwards wandered over to the Malt Shovel for a few beers. I don't know what the group in the corner were on, but they was a lot of laughing going on. One woman in their group could have put many a Hyena to shame :-) Weather - Sunny Intervals Forecast - Sunny Intervals Terry Streeter NB Arun - Shardlow ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor --------------------~--> Yahoo! Groups gets a make over. See the new email design. http://us.click.yahoo.com/XISQkA/lOaOAA/yQLSAA/ygtolB/TM --------------------------------------------------------------------~-> Yahoo! Groups Links <*> To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/canals-list/ <*> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] <*> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
