Exhaustion, relief, elation, achievement, fear and pride all in one week – a veritable tidal wave of emotions has swept us along.
A week ago we were moored at Gunthorpe on the non-tidal River Trent waiting to leave to head towards the tidal Trent. We had our anchor at the ready, our lifejackets on whatever the weather and our nerves jangling.
Since then we have taken our narrowboat home through beating sun and relentless rain 62 miles and 5 large locks along 18 further non-tidal miles and 43 miles along the tidal Trent. We are now moored just one mile away from Yorkshire.
The most dramatic elements were once we came off at Torksey and headed into Lincoln for a city breather. We moored up for a relaxing lunch only to have a huge willow tree shed a massive bough just alongside us – fortunately not on top of us. Then coming into West Stockwith and Keadby Locks it’s important to head past the locks with the tide and then turn your boat accelerating hard against the flow to come back into the locks. Steve on the tiller made it into West Stockwith at his first attempt, earning a 10 out of 10 from the lock keeper. He got praise at Keadby too but was not as happy with the turn and found the tide taking the boat further from the lock side on than he intended. Still we got in without injury or incident.
We had a reminder of the dangers of the river as we left its waters. A boat that came loose from its moorings at Gunthorpe and which drifted before sinking, was recovered by a wreck barge. We saw its 4 white fenders floating above the scuppered boat and imagined it to be a small cruiser. Imagine our horror when the barge came past us this morning with the boat alongside. Andromeda emerged as a pretty large cruiser that had been completely hidden from us in the waters and mudbanks of the Trent.
The Boating Association’s map book was invaluable for navigation along this tidal stretch, detailed, and informed. It allowed us to avoid the sand or mudbanks and hazards of Bubble Rack, Marshall’s Parlour, Stony Bight, Dandy Cocktail and No Man’s Friend.
We saw Bob the buoy – whose meanderings up and down the river are legendary. He is to be ignored rather than used as an instruction. We discovered interesting places we would never have discovered, like Misterton Mother Drain’s pump houses Kate and Ada, West Stockwith’s Idle Brewery and Cromwell’s Milestone Brewery. There’s a theme emerging here!
It’s good to have company on adventures and we managed to travel part way with nb Oleanna from Cromwell to Torksey and the entire way from West Stockwith to Keadby with nb Great Escape.
What have we learned this week? Fear of the unknown has been banished – to be replaced by a fear of the known! Respect for the river and its tides is now ingrained within us. We pushed ourselves out of our comfort zone, and pushed the boat harder for longer than ever before. We have travelled faster in our home than ever before and further in a very short space of time and managed a lovely family catch up.
Since we determined to beat the blockages whilst moored at Marple, we have travelled 198 miles, 4.5 furlongs and through 70 locks and 1 tunnel. That journey to date has encompassed 74 miles 4.5 furlongs of narrow canals including 47 locks; 44 miles, 5.5 furlongs of broad canals with 16 locks; 7 miles of small rivers; 28 miles 5.75 furlongs of large rivers; 43 miles 4.75 furlongs of tidal rivers and 7 large locks.
We’ve earned a break, a pause for some work, and the next leg of our trip will take us up to Ripon – more rivers, more tidal waters and more canals, a mere 89 miles and 16 locks.
Pickingupducks 