A darkening night

As of late on The Kite Experiment, all ends are tied up, bon voyage's have taken place, we have provisions on board and have been looking into the route ahead for our narrow boat journey. Our first major destination is Atherstone in beautiful Warwickshire.

For those following the route in the Collins waterways guides, we commence our journey from WaterWays guide 6 - Nottingham, York and the North East, page 141. We will be leaving Nottingham from the City Centre, along the Nottingham Canal between Carrington Street Road Bridge (Bridge 7) and Bridge 6. This location is directly next to Nottingham train station and below the tram track, along with the fact that it is Saturday night, there is a lively atmosphere in the air!

From here we will be going through the lock at Wilford Street Bridge 10, heading West towards Beeston and the lovely willow trees along that stretch of the Nottingham Canal. Going by our previous calculations on journey times we should be doing about 10miles a day, that is all being well of course! We will be going to the major waterway junction, Trent Lock (see page 139 in guide 6 or page 99 in guide 3 - Birmingham and the heart of England) via Cramfleet and then going a new way for us, down the Sawley Cut. Sawley Marina appears to have some good facilities so that might be our first good stop over, we will see.

So, when do we go? Sunday or Monday.

This evening I have completed another curtain, just in time as the lights have gradually been dimming even though we ran the engine to charge the batteries. Now that is 4 completed curtains with 2 still to do and it looks like there will be excess material so I'm thinking of making a bag maybe (a bucket bag?!). On the battery front, we have three leisure batteries (one which is the engine starter) which all seem to be very inefficient and due for replacement but from the research done so far, it sounds like that will be a couple of hundred pounds to fork out so it will have to wait until work comes into fruition again.