Newark to Nottingham

Tuesday 1 April 2008
Newark to Nottingham Day 12
River Trent and Nottingham Canal

Miles 23
Locks 7
Hours 9

We set off at 9.30 am with the crew of Verity still dead to the world. It was a grey and blustery day which called for waterproofs from the off.


The Town Lock Locky was at his post promptly and advised that the fresh had fallen overnight, down from 3.5m to 3.0m – but 9 ft of fresh is still a lot of flood-water surging over Newark Weir. Our progress up the Newark cut was misleadingly swift with kilometre boards passing every 8 minutes.


This quickly slowed to 12 mins per km as we joined the main river and, on occasion dropped to over 15 mins as we negotiated the narrow bends at Stoke Hall. With so little traffic on the river each lock keeper called ahead and to warn of our arrival and each lock greeted us with a green light and a cheery wave. All the way up the massage was the same. There was virtually no traffic on the water and only 3 boats passed through the locks – and we were the only ones heading upstream. Maybe there was a message in that!
It proved to be a long and lonely day with a mix of heavy rain, sun and an ever present howling wind which caused the cratch cover to billow and flap but amazing never break free.


It was a relief to approach Nottingham and finally pick up another narrowboat just above Holme Lock, sailing in formation for the last two miles.


We locked onto the Nottingham Canal at 6.00pm in the gathering gloom and called it a day at Castle Marina, just beyond Sainsburys. This spot is much quieter than the official visitor moorings at the rear of Sainsburys, which are blighted by excessive road noise.