Retracing my route – back up the Trent

Tidal Trent once more

The journey was pleasant and uneventful apart from having to watch out for lots of floating tree debris. Getting this around the propeller on a tidal river is not a good idea. I arrived back at Torksey lock to stay on the pontoon overnight and do the second leg on the next day, when the tide was right. Here are a few pictures from those 15 miles:

I had liaised with another boat on social media to do the second log to Cromwell together. They were coming down Torksey lock and we were planning to meet up as they exited onto the river. But it started to go a bit wrong from the beginning.

Unfortunately I was unable to keep up with the speed of the boats ahead even running my engine at the edge of overheating. It turned out that my buddies did not actually hang back for me, so I was on my own at least for the second half of the 3h journey. The purpose of the buddying up for me had been that there are a lot of tricky areas on this leg of the journey and I had wanted to follow another boat’s line rather than having to decipher the charts and steer at the same time. But most of the time I could not see a boat ahead.

Fortunately it all went well until I rounded the last bend to go into the lock, when I caught a fisherman’s line on my bow. The first thing I knew about it was when the owner came running and started frantically pulling on his rod. I don’t know if I took it all away, but I was lucky that it didn’t all wrap around my propeller just as I was entering the lock. Nothing found later upon inspection, so maybe he cut the line and saved his rod.

At the end of this long and hot day I was so exhausted that I took the first mooring just above the lock. We were back to the high walls and ladder climbing! Sigh …

Non-tidal on to Newark

The next day I made a dash for Newark as the next heatwave was about to start properly and I wanted to sit this out in town so that I could at least get some shopping. I was determined that I wouldn’t do the Trent locks going up on my own as it would have involved climbing at least a 6m ladder and holding the boat from the top at a really weird angle.

Fortunately I passed two other narrowboats just as they were about to set off and we formed another little convoy to go to Newark. I went through Newark Nether lock with them without having to get off the boat.

And the best thing was that we all managed to moor up on the Newark pontoon moorings (how was the pontoon so empty??), which meant no ladders here. Phew! The next days were spent mainly sweltering in the worst heatwave so far as sadly the pontoon offered little shade.

Newark to Nottingham

When the heatwave finally broke, all the boats set off.

A bit further on there is a completely unprotected big weir that gave me the heebie jeebies. The only indication is the warning sign, but there are no barriers at all. I have never seen anything like this!

Fortunately there were lock keepers at every lock, so I made good progress back up the Trent. But it was significantly busier than on my trip down in April. When I moored on the Gunthorpe lock visitor moorings, I got the last available spot, which was on the land facing side of the floating pontoon. Getting in was a bit of an adventure with strong winds and a narrow and shallow channel. I tried to reverse in, which ended up in a big mess. So I had to abandon my principle of always mooring facing upstream and went in forwards without problems. What was I even thinking??

This whole area is very beautiful as it is more hilly around the river.

The next day I reached Holme lock again, the last lock before Nottingham. Approaching it from below is interesting as the lock is flanked by a very big sluice including the UK’s biggest fish pass (sadly all not accessible to the public) and on the other side a whitewater rafting course. The lock entrance in the middle is so hidden that it looked to me like I was supposed to go into the whitewater area. Fortunately not, but the whitewater channel made an appearance later that I didn’t expect!

Directly following the end of the moorings is the upstream intake of the whitewater channel. As I tried to leave the mooring, I found out how strong the pull of this channel was. I pushed the bow out, but as I was trying to get off the mooring, the bow was pulled over toward the channel, which was protected by strong poles in the water (like a weir). Cue a strong reverse back to the wall and try again and … same result. My bow even came to rest against the first of the poles and I was very worried that, when I reversed, the bow would actually slip past the pole into the channel.

I came to the conclusion that I needed a much longer run-up to get off. Remember though, there is a sunken boat behind me! I reversed as far as I dared and gave it full throttle. Finally I made it out into the middle of the river. This was such a tense moment on what was a very benign river otherwise. It showed once more how quickly a calm cruise can turn into panic in a second.

I was too panicked to take pictures during my manoeuvres, but in the picture below you can see the poles protecting the channel intake and to the left the mooring wall. The sunken boat is in front of the cruiser moored a little further back.

Nottingham to the river Soar junction

Soon after I came to Meadow Lane lock, where I left the Trent and entered the Nottingham & Beeston canal once more.

I pootled through Nottingham, where I once again staid a couple of days.

Past Nottingham and Beeston it was back out onto another stretch of the Trent to the Cranfleet cut, another short piece of canal. On the way down Cranfleet lock had given me lots of trouble, so this time I timed my transit to have volunteers on the lock. There were four of them!

The Cranfleet cut is the last stretch before the Trent-Soar junction. I have now finished retracing my route up the Trent and am turning to pastures new by turning left at the complicated 5-way junction.

Onward to the Soar!