We left Redhill by 11am and passed some lovely boats which being on the river are alot larger than narrowboats. This 'Piper' built Dutch Barge for example is very grand.
Five minutes later and we were tackling our first lock, Ratcliffe Lock at Ratcliffe on Soar. It was wide enough for two boats, there were infact three, ours on one side and two smaller boats on the other. It's always nice sharing locks especially when the work of opening the gates and winding the paddles is shared. The sun was teaming down, perfect for cruising and catching some rays.
The summer poppies were out at the towpath edge.
We had brunch on-the-go, one of our boating specials, Fry-up in a bowl, practical, filling and delicious.
I'm so tired I'm falling asleep writing this, so it'll have to wait until tomorrow morning when I shall update on the full day of today.
(12 hours later...)
Morning! To continue with our second day of moving...
As we continued towards Kegworth we passed fields of horses, sheep and cows. There were bulls running in and out of the water to cool and drink from the river.
We cruised passed Kegworth Marine where a boat was up out the water for repair under the canopy.
We passed many weirs along this route, having to keep our boat away from the edge.
Next up was Kegworth Shallow Lock which we were in and out in no time. We passed under bridge 45 - station road going into Kegworth...
and round the corner of the canal was Kegworth Deep Lock. Leigh jumped off to moor up for the lock and I worked the tiller. This is a new lock with the old one sitting to the right (going up) filled in and grown over - you can tell by the newer brickwork inside the lock.
It was a rather large lock and to stop crashing into the boats we shared the lock with, I wrapped the centre line rope around the blue guides, so I could hold the rope from the tiller and as we rose, so would the rope. Apparently on the 'continent' this method is used mainly as opposed to using the bollards from the top of the lock.
Leigh worked the paddles and gates.
We carried on going against the stream of the River Soar, through some beautiful countryside...
And heading on towards Zouch.
We passed a Boatyard with moorings and some rather strange floating homes.
Taking the tight turn at 90degrees to go through Zouch Road Bridge (number 43)...
We were through Zouch and looking forward to the charms of Normanton on Soar. The church steeple of Normanton was covered in scaffolding unfortunately, so looked like a building site. But some of the waterside properties were charming!
We passed the local boating club house...
and were back into fields, overhanging trees and wild hedgerows. I took a lie down on the roof...
whilst Leigh passed the time on the tiller.
We were on route towards Loughborough.
We came to Bishops Meadow Lock where there was a spot of confusion from some other boaters already in a lock. Nonetheless, their 72foot boat and our 65foot boat certainly filled up all the space inside.
We discovered a notice on the lock arm that due to water shortage there are restrictions on a section of the GUC (Grand Union Canal) which will affect us.
No worries though as we are not in a rush. (We later found out from a friend who is further along the GUC that BW are making boats share the locks and wait for boats to use locks in their favour - This is fine for us, but I have met some boaters for whom it will blow their tops!)
We reached the junction for the GUC to head through Loughborough, it came all a bit suddenly and Leigh had to do some expert maneuvers to get us through.
The canal through loughborough doesn't have much to say. Flats pile up towards the canal edge and some friendly residents gave us a genteel wave. We passed under bridges...
From Millers Bridge we were now on the Leicester Navigation heading towards Barrow Upon Soar.
We passed Pillings Marina (not my sort of place, with narrowboats lined up like terraced houses) and through the flood lock.
At the weir just after the lock, we spotted a tall, slender heron.
The sun had disappeared, and grey clouds were overhead.
And did we get caught? We sure did. Even as we were mooring up, I ended up so wet it was like someone was pouring a bucket of water over my head.
The rains stopped and with it being perfect time to clean the boat, I ran a sponge along the side.
We continued the journey...
through Barrow Deep Lock.
The canal was rather windy with some more sharp turns.
We passed a beautiful bridge...
At Mountsorrel we were hoping to moor for the night, but all spaces were taken up so we had to continue even though we had both had enough as the river has limited places to moor, avoiding the shallow banks.
And after the lock overlooked by a pub we reached Sileby moorings and squeezed in between a narrowboat and a cruiser. Both tired and worn out we made a few mistakes in our mooring efforts with me nearly ending up in the canal!
After a nice rest, a good meal to the sunsetting we were chuffed at our achievement.
Delia explored her new terrain...
and Leigh and I took a short stoll to the nearby weir with a glass of wine.
The following photo's are courtesy of Leigh!
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