Hi everyone,
Arrived here at Gunthorpe on Friday but for some reason I couldn’t get an internet connection until now. Anyway we left the ‘flightpath moorings’ (as I now call them!) at Kegworth on Thursday morning and ended the day at Stoke Lock. We hadn’t intended to go so far but circumstances dictated it.
All started well, we made good time to Thrumpton where we left the River Soar and entered the river Trent. As there are only 4 locks between there and the other side of Nottingham we decided to go through Nottingham with the idea that we could moor in the afternoon at Holme lock. How wrong we were! We had been warned of the maintenance work at Meadow Lane Lock and with the information that it would be open between 3pm and 4pm we arrived there about 2-30pm. I asked if we would be able to go through at 3 and was told yes and someone would come and get us. We had a cup of tea and waited…..and waited…….and waited. By about 3-45pm there were 5 of us waiting and we were told it would be 4pm now when the lock opened.
Eventually we made it through the lock about 4-30pm and the race was on to get to Holme Lock. By the time we got there all the upstream moorings were taken, except for the ones where you have to scale Mount Everest to get off your boat, as the ground is way above the roof! Obviously George is not a mountaineering kind of dog so we had no choice but to lock through and hope there was something the other side. The chap we went in the lock with told us there were pontoon moorings just the other side of the lock which there were but the friendly (not!) lock keeper told us we couldn’t moor there and to go to Stoke Lock!
So off we went again worried that it may actually get dark before we could moor up! Fortunately we found a pontoon mooring at Stoke Lock and all was well if a bit late!
Friday morning we discovered we wanted to leave before the lock keeper came on duty and I had to work out how to operate the HUGE mechanised lock myself. Actually it was dead easy, the hardest part was opening the control panel as my BW key didn’t want to work! The lock keeper turned up as Ken was going into the lock so he finished off for me.
We then travelled the short distance to Gunthorpe which is where we are now. We did get here a bit early but someone did say they are very popular moorings at weekends and as Mum and Dave are coming to stay in the Unicorn Hotel here Sun and Mon we thought we’d better get in while we could.
It is really lovely here, I can see why it’s popular. Today we spent the morning cleaning the boat until it was too hot then we retired to the pub (as you do!) The weather has been absolutely glorious, however, I polished my brass this afternoon so it’s bound to rain…………. it has every other time I’ve polished it!
Cheers B.
