Fri Jun 6th - 18 miles, 3 furlongs, 19 locks - Clayworth to Shireoaks Total cruising time 10 hours 15 minutes.
Slightly late start at 8.35am this morning as we were both feeling a bit tired after yesterdays run. Through the curiously named "Whitsunday Pie" lock (the last of the broad locks) at 10.25am and tied up just below Retford lock to do some shopping. This was slightly prolonged by a misguided attempt to use the nearby Aldi. Everything was cheap, but almost nothing was what we were looking for. After abandoning there we spotted the nearby Asda, so were rather more successful there. Set off again at 12.15pm through the Retford and Forest locks, stopping in the third Forest lock for Thetfordry duty. Kilton lock has the most peculiar anti-vandal arrangements yet seen. Basically there is a big steel box padlocked over the end of the spindle, but the BW padlock is inside the box, accessible through the bottom of the box, which is missing. If you don't know (or spot) this you could waste quite some time trying to work out what you are supposed to do. Fortunately I spotted a padlock from underneath on the bottom gate gear as I went into the lock, so knew what the arrangement was. Quite a bit of trouble with Worksop Town lock, as there was a lot of leakage from between the bottom gates. We eventually got through and then had an uneventful run to Shireoaks where we moored at 8.20pm. After eating we'd planned to go to the Station pub in Shireoaks, which gets a good write up in my edition of Nich's, only it appears to have closed. Didn't bother looking for another one as it was getting quite late and was raining steadily. We split a bottle of wine instead. :-) Terry Streeter NB Arun - Shireoaks
