Arrive at Shobnall Boatyard

Sorry for the delay in the final blog entry for a week or so - life has been a bit hectic .

We have left Densie at Shobnall Boatyard to be blacked and serviced. We expect it to be ready, bright, shiny, and purring by next weekend.

We left Swarkestone just before 9am and past through the final 12foot deep double lock at Stenson. This was a bit exciting as for the first time on this section of the T&M we were in a lock on our own. So we roped up against the side and opened the paddles, carefully starting with the nearside ones as experience has told us that the water enters the lock at an angle, bounces off the wall on the opposite side to the boat and forces the boat safely against the nearside wall. However... the T&M locks are different. Here the stream of water stays on the same side, gets between the boat and the wall and forces it violently across the lock to hit the other wall with a bang. A BW guy kindly explained it all to us once the lock was full and the boat had settled down.

Arriving at Burton on Trent around lunchtime, we stopped for a quick snack at the very pleasant Shobnall Fields park moorings and then checked that the boatyard could accept Densie for next week. Bad luck! No room, so we had to leave her on the towpath just outside the boatyard, to be picked up today.

We had left my car at Shobnall when we started on this journey 2 weeks ago and so with a quick packing of dirty clothes and perishable food we were ready to restart our land-based existence. Back to... (1) dead broadband connection (2) Broken PC (3) 2 weeks worth of washing etc etc.

We expect to pick Densie up on Friday this week or Tuesday next week and charge down the Trent & Mersey for 1 to 1.5 days to our marina. Then we will need to empty the boat and prepare for the winter - probably no more trips this year. But, if we have a warm week or two in November, who knows.

Next blog entry will cover the trip back to our marina.

Swarkestone again

We are now back where we were Monday last week. We left Sawley at 9:45, along the Trent, back up to the Trent & Mersey canal, through the old canal village of Shardlow, up 3 locks, and moored at Swarkestone at 13:45. This leaves us with a half day's run into Burton to leave the boat at Shobnall boatyard.

During the trip we accompanied and assisted a hireboat (exCanaltime, now hireacanalboat.com) who had started out from Sawley yesterday afternoon, through two of the locks - their first ones. The crew was inexperienced, but the only lock training provided by the hire company was a video. This seems to us rather irresponsible as the locks on this section of the Trent & Mersey are large, and create strong eddies during operation. If you dont know what you are doing you could sink your boat in the lock. I guess most of their hirers dont but even so....