A beautiful sunny summer days cruising on the river
After yesterdays early start it was a more relaxed beginning to the day with a 9am start. There wasn't a cloud to be seen anywhere until about mid morning, it was glorious. There were quite a few boats on the move as we had to wait at 3 locks for boats travelling in the opposite direction.
We passed 8 BW workers in 4 different locations, 2 had a very quick inspection at a lock where the ground paddles were out of action and then disappeared, 2 were walking the towpath but came to a dead end where Land and Water contractors were rebuilding a lock pontoon (you would have thought they would have known the towpath was closed.) Two were painting a new fence and gate on the towpath and the last pair were on a BW work boat that passed us 2 days ago, they were supposed to be repairing a retaining wall on the side of a weir. We could see where they had removed damaged brickwork but then spent quite a while admiring their handiwork or were they trying to decide what to do next?
Some of these workers saw us yesterday at Birstall and they were taking boat names and numbers and entering the info into a small hand held computer. While Dot got into conversation with them they told her we are in the red. Thinking logically like being in the red with the bank Dot got a bit concerned as we are fully paid up for the year and asked to see the computer. The guys laughed at Dot's alarm and then explained that as we are Continuous Cruisers our file is marked by a red line across the top of the screen. Panic over! They handed her the computer and showed her how entering a boats registration number brings up all the details of the boat, licence and address details of the owners. Nice guys and they promised that they would see us again today which they did. One of them suggested that when we went back to New Zealand that we dig a big hole in our back garden and put the narrowboat in it. Now that would be a laugh!
An unusual weir on the Soar navigation
At Barrow Mill basin we stopped to take on water and deposit the never ending rubbish we seem to collect. Christina went to the little cafe on the site and ordered Derek a sausage and egg butty for his lunch. She was having a cooks day off or part there of. It was only another 2 miles before we called it a day and pulled onto these very nice moorings complete with bollards which seems strange being out in the country. I say country but in actual fact we are only a mile from Loughborough.
Now I know we should secure our property but this is ridiculous.
We plan to stay here for the week-end and tomorrow, weather permitting I will be off to the Great Central Railway (preserved). I have been listening to the trains which are not too far away from where we are moored and it was great to hear the whistles and exhaust noises of a live steam loco at work.
1291 locks, 1857½ miles, 43 Tunnels, 42 swing bridges and 19 lift bridges since Nov 2006
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