Through Leicester, and on to Nottingham

 I have been remiss in not updating this blog before. We are now home having left Leo for the winter. I was planning on doing two more updates to our blog, but time has marched on so you have a bumper edition covering our last couple of weeks boating for 2021. This update then covers our cruising to and then through Leicester to Trent Junction and down the river Trent. It is always a bit sad coming to the end of cruising for the year, but nights are closing in, leaves are falling and it is time for us to go back to being landlubbers for the winter. In the meantime here is the last update from us for this boating season.

Our last update took us to the bottom of the Foxton Locks. We moored on Thursday 9th having just turned onto the Market Harborough Arm. This takes a winding course for about five and a half miles into Market Harborough. The arm was originally built to be the main route of the canal with the idea of going to Northampton. It would have been a broad canal allowing wider vessels to gain access to the canal system heading north. But it never happened and now the arm is a dead end. Why the picture of a cow? Well, as we were pottering along, we spotted something brown appearing round a tree and then disappearing. It proved to be this cow.

Here is the basin at the end of the Arm. Hire boats are based here and there is ample space to turn as well as services to the left.

Having moored, we walked into town. This is the Symington building which used to be a corset factory but is now the headquarters of the town council and also has a cafe where we had lunch, and upstairs is an interesting museum.

In the musuem were extensive displays of finds dating to the early Roman period which were part of a hoard buried at Hallaton, south east of Leicester. The photo is of an ear protector of a Roman soldier's helmet.

Market Harborough is on the river Welland which flows out into the Wash close to the mouth of the river Witham near Boston. This overgrown water channel is the river Welland in the town.

The road from the basin to the town is a broad street with some fine old houses along it.

We liked the peacefull Leicestershire countryside. This photo was taken on Saturday after retracing our way to Foxton and turning right to head north. From here the canal is on the level to Saddington Tunnel and then starts a gradual fall down 24 locks to Leicester where it joins the river Soar.

Just before the entrance to Saddington Tunnel is this feeder channel which supplies water from a reservoir nearby. We moored and followed a footpath close to the feeder to.....

.....Saddington reservoir. The water level seemed a bit on the low side, but we haven't had a lot of rain this summer so perhaps that's not surprising.

On Sunday 12th we cruised through the half mile Saddington Tunnel and soon came to the first of the locks leading down to Leicester. This boat, Thomas Henry, joined us down the locks. Here we are sharing the first - Kibworth Top Lock.

This is Wistow church near the canal. There is a lovely mooring here which we have used before but on Sunday we carried on for several more locks.

This is a wide angle view of the wall of Bumblebee Lock. Clearly there is some work to do here to repair the damage. We did alert a CRT maintenance man to the problem which could catch a boat rising in the lock.

On Monday we carried on through Kilby Bridge towards the centre of Leicester. This lock (shared with Matt aboard a boat called Tinker Too) is called 'Double Rail Lock'. The origin of the name is obvious in this picture and it is like this because a footpath crosses these lock gates and the double set of handrails gives more protection to passing pedestrians.

Having stayed the night near Glen Parva we cruised down to Leicester on Tuesday. It was a very wet morning. We are pictured waiting to go down King's Lock. Below this lock the canal joins the River Soar for the first time. The Soar has a reputation for rising very quickly but the mornings rain did not cause us any problems.

This picture is of Leo waiting to go through Freemans Meadow Lock. As the photo shows there is a huge weir above this lock which, in flood conditions, would pull boats towards it. To the left of the weir and out of sight is the ground of Leicester City Football Club.

We moored at the good floating pontoon at Friars Mill in the centre of Leicester and after the rain stopped later on Tuesday afternoon, our friends Tim and Dianne on narrowboat Kingfisher arrived from downstream. The rest of the afternoon was spent catching up with where we had each been this year over tea and cake (including apple cake made that morning by Dianne) . This is Tim and Dianne leaving on Wednesday morning to go upstream while we set off by bike to visit the National Space Centre a couple of miles downstream.

Behind this novel model of a cat climbing out of a spacecraft you can see the characteristic shape of the Centre. The tall 'bubble' protects the Blue Streak and Thor-Able rockets inside.

This is taken from near the top of the bubble building. The foreground shows the nose cone of the Thor-Able rocket. Through the inflated plastic material of the space centre, you can see the building and tall chimney of a pumping station which is also now a museum and which we shall have to visit another time. The National Space Centre gives a good introduction to the space race as well as presentations about the planets and the wider universe.

On our way back to Leo we cycled through Abbey Park where the foundations are all that remains of Leicester Abbey. This is a modern memorial to Cardinal Wolsey who died here. It is in what is thought may be the site of his grave in a side chapel of the Abbey church. The quote is from Shakespeare's Henry VIII.

This is a view from across the river of the Friars Mill Moorings. Leo is in the middle of the three boats.

On Thursday we left Leicester heading past these painted panels towards North Lock. There is much redevelopment going on along the canal and the otter hides a building site.

This mural is next to Limekiln Lock.

Below Belgrave Lock we got a good view back over the weir to the National Space Centre.

An oddity of the route to the north of Leicester is that the canal cuts across from the river Soar to its tributary the river Wreake. In this photo the Wreake comes in under the bridge to the right. The Wreake used to be navigable upstream to Melton Mowbray and from there by the Oakham Canal to Oakham.

We moored on Thursday night on the Wreake above Junction Lock. In the afternoon we walked into the village of Cossington past some lakes and saw this Little Egret. These birds used to be rare in the UK but are becoming increasingly common.

The following day we came down Junction Lock and soon came to the confluence of the rivers Wreake and Soar. This photo was taken looking back and shows the Wreake to the left where the arrows point and the Soar straight on where the boats are moored.

We moored overnight at Barrow upon Soar. In a basin near our mooring were all these fun boats, mostly pedalos, ready for hire.

This boat viewed from the town bridge has come down Barrow Lock towards the left, which at over 9 feet deep is a big one, and is rejoining the main river before going under the bridge.

Our route on Saturday took us down Barrow Lock and soon to this flood lock close to Pillings Marina. A flood lock normally has both sets of gates open (as this one does if you look closely) but during floods it can be closed to protect the canal beyond from flooding. So normally you just cruise straight through without stopping.

It was a nice day on Saturday (18th September) as we came through Loughborough. In this photo we are just coming to the T junction where you can turn left for Loughborough Basin or right to continue following the Soar. We turned right and didn't stop in Loughborough though we have visited the town before.

Kegworth Deep Lock lives up to its name. It was built to replace two locks and is about 12 feet deep. We met old friends Jen and Jim on 'Dire Straits' coming the other way. It's a shame that you don't get much time to chat on these occasions.

Coming down the last few miles of the Soar we kept our eyes open for the familiar sight of the huge cooling towers of Ratcliffe Power Station seen here.

On Sunday we had a spell of quite heavy rain as we went through Ratcliffe Lock. Here are the remains of the old lock shown here alongside the new one.

Here you can see more clearly an open flood lock, this one is at Redhill just before the Soar meets the river Trent.

And finally here is the meeting with the Trent. The arrows point left which is advisable as the huge Thrumpton Weir lies to the right. You can just make out the sail of a small dinghy to the far left of the picture. There was so little wind that this dinghy had drifted downstream and was being towed back to the sailing club at Trent junction.

On Sunday we moored overnight on the floating pontoon at Trent junction. There was a magnificent sunset. Trent junction is a major crossroads on the canal system with the Trent navigation crossing from west to east, the Soar to the south and the Erewash Canal to the north. We had come through here back in May and had now come full circle and have travelled all four branches this year.

On Monday (19th September) we completed our journey for the 2021 boating season. First our route took us along Cranfleet cut (to avoid Thrumpton weir) and through Cranfleet Lock which had this fine lock gate garden.

This view is taken looking back below Cranfleet Lock where the route rejoins the river Trent. The lock is where the arrows point on the right of the picture.

We had a lovely day for our last cruising. The Trent is wide and was quite low with relative lack of rain so we were on the look out for shallows.

Here we are approaching Barton Island where the navigation route is to the left of the island.

 

So that brings us to the end of our boating for this year. We have left Leo in a safe mooring in Nottingham.  We hope you have enjoyed the account of our travels and wish you all a happy winter. Next year we have vague plans of going north but we have plenty of time to think about that. Thank you for reading our blog.