So far, So Good

5 Locks, 7 ½ Miles. Now moored Beeston Lock, Beeston Cut, Nottingham Canal.

A sight unseen in New Zealand

As predicted the River Soar did come up overnight by about a foot but the BW guys arrived this morning to say it was safe to carry on although South bound boats would still have to use Kegworth shallow lock as a normal lock until water level's dropped and it could then remain open again. As we were North bound this was of no consequence to us.

With a name like this it must have some connection with New Zealand

The river was running faster than we had encountered before but it was an easy run down to the Trent Lock Junction where the Trent & Mersey, Erewash canal and the Nottingham Canal (River Trent) meet. The Cranfleet Cut, which is the first section of navigation bypassing the river Trent towards Nottingham takes you the first mile to Cranfleet lock where you drop back down onto the river which is as wide and fast as the River Thames. This took us 4 miles down to the Beeston Cut which is another navigation again bypassing an un-navigable section of the River Trent. This last section was also flowing fairly fast although not in flood.

As we approached Beeston lock we had to keep hard over to the left but even then we could still feel the pull of the weir off to our right. Thankfully the final approach to the lock is protected from the weir which incidentally is very, very wide. Immediately through the lock we were lucky to find 2 convenient sized moorings which will do us for the next couple of night's.

Now look at the name of this one, we knew there was one somewhere

1301 locks, 1872½ miles, 43 Tunnels, 42 swing bridges and 19 lift bridges since Nov 2006