Almost at Nottingham

The heavy rain recently has speeded up the flow on the River Trent quite a bit.  So poor Leo has been working hard the last few days coming up the river.  We are now moored above Holme Lock on the outskirts of Nottingham.

We were glad we'd come up the tidal river as far as Cromwell Lock on Tuesday.  The weather on Wednesday was pretty awful.  We did walk into the village but the rain had set in by the time we got back and it carried on most of the day.  So we stayed where we were.

Helen decided to wash the sheets as we came up the tidal river to Cromwell.  As the weather wasn't conducive to drying the washing, we lit the stove and here's what the inside of Leo looked like that evening.

Thursday morning after the rain and wind was wonderful and very still.  Here is the view looking downstream from our mooring towards the lock.

We made the most of the fine weather to cruise the few miles upstream into Newark.

Here we are approaching the junction where you turn off the river onto the navigable cut through Newark.  Shortly after the junction you come to Nether Lock, which like all the locks up to Nottingham has a lock keeper who works it for you.

Newark is a very attractive town and we arrived on a beautiful day.  We sat at a cafe in the market place shown here and it was really too hot.  This was our first sign that it might be summer.

We followed a walking trail around the town which pointed out all sorts of curiosities.  One was this building which was the Castle Brewery.  It is no longer a brewery but is an attractive Victorian building.

Here is a detail of the carving in the pediment above the entrance.  It is a fine representation of Newark Castle.

There are two signs like this one either end of the ruins of the Castle.  What on earth possessed someone to put up a notice like this?  On Friday morning we had a guided tour of the dungeons in the medieval castle.  Suitably gory tales of how debtors who did not pay up and finished up perishing in a stone chamber with up to 60 similar people, a fair percentage of them dying and being trampled underfoot.  Not a pretty thought.  Some of the chambers we entered were only accessible by ladders.  You need to be fit to explore Newark Castle.

We liked this tactile plan of the town.  The River is in the foreground.

Here is a view of the castle from Town Lock.  Like the castle at Lincoln there never was a central keep but there were buildings against the inside of the curtain wall by the river.

This view  is from near our mooring and also shows the lovely arched bridge over the river.













On Friday, Saturday and Sunday we have come further up river.

Upstream of Newark is a huge unfenced weir at Averham.  We stayed well away on the other side of the channel!

We have a new plastic duck to add to our collection.  The nearer one is the latest addition.  We've called him 'Stampy' because we rescued him from Stamp End Lock at Lincoln.  Trouble is he needs a magnet on his bottom like the others.  Another job for Ian.

This stretch of the river above Hazelford Lock reminded us of the River Thames near Cliveden with steep woods coming down to the river.

Because the river is flowing faster than usual, approaching a lock (here Gunthorpe) entails cruising through the foam coming off the weir.  The flow also gets faster as you approach the lock and weir.

On a walk from Gunthorpe Lock moorings we came across this culvert where it looks as if two hands are buried.  Makes you wonder if the rest of him is attached to the hands. Obviously the builder had a sense of humour.

After the rain, we had a calm evening and this is the view from Gunthorpe Bridge.  Our mooring is in the distance on the left.

This is the view coming to Holme Lock.  At 12 feet this is a lot deeper than the other locks on the river.

A channel running parallel with the lock and weir creates a white water channel for canoes and rafts as part of the National Water Sports Centre.  It makes a diverting afternoon when mooring here, but I don't think we'll take Leo down here!

Like the ducks in an earlier posting, here we have a family of geese with Mum and Dad at each end and the kids in a line between them.












We are going to stay in and around Nottingham for a few days as we have arranged to see several friends living nearby.  After that we will be heading south away from the Trent valley on the River Soar.