Leicester Ring - day 17

Our Willington mooring

Before leaving Willington, we went for a walk down to where an old, former toll bridge elegantly crosses the River Trent. Before the bridge was built, the river separated two communities. When the bridge was built to solve this problem, the people found the tolls to be excessive, leading over some years to a great deal of local pressure to free the bridge entirely of the tolls. This finally happened an 1898.

Other than the bridge, the town seems to have little to offer. The Co-Op was useful, but limited.

After an early lunch, we set off under a cloudy sky, but with less wind than yesterday, and, as we travelled, the sun came out and it became pleasantly warm. Confident in my newly-learned skills, I took the tiller for a good share of the time. The canal was lovely, but the further scenery limited by tall trees for much of the way. The only two locks were single width, and just 3'6” and 3' deep respectively. We passed through Burton-on-Trent, once famous for its numerous breweries, and still having the smell of malt and hops in the air from the few remaining companies.

Dallow Lock

Just past Branston Lock we came into the outskirts of the village of Branston – apparently where the famous Pickle was first made – and moored next to The Bridge pub restaurant. The sun is shining brightly, the wind is low, and it looks as if we might be in for a spell of summer!

Branston Lock

We'd like to issue a plea to fellow boaters! When you hear a warning blast from a boat horn, you answer it with a return blast. We hooted in a very proper manner as we approached, very slowly, a blind bend that turned into a bridge, our way also obscured by a tree. We proceeded with care only to meet the bow of a boat emerging from the bridge. Grace managed an emergency stop and evasive action while they continued on their course, the wife looking like thunder, angry, we presume, at the obtrusive noise we had made; and the helmsman shouting 'we heard you!'  We were, unfortunately, too astonished to shout back the obvious reply: 'Well, we didn't hear you - we'd have known you were coming if we had!"

Sunday

It rained during the night, and we woke early to a very dull and windy day. We're in no hurry, but we did want to get to Willington today, to use the services there, and get some shopping; neither essential, but making for greater comfort.

So we left and made our way to the next deep lock at Swarkestone. This was manned by a volunteer, who was emptying the lock for us as we approached. The rain started, and the wind got up to speed as Kantara entered. Locks of this size - another double lock, eleven foot deep - take a long time to fill, unless you want your boat to be thrown around inside the chamber by extreme turbulence, so we were getting pretty wet by the time the boat was leaving the top gate. There was plenty of mooring there, so we stopped to escape the weather, had lunch, and waited for conditions to improve.

Three hours later, the rain had stopped, but the wind was still very strong, but we opted to move on. Our next stop was the 12'4" deep Stenson Lock, and we arrived just as the crew of another boat were emptying the chamber so that they, too, could go up. We were told that they had had to wait several hours to get into the lock, because neither bottom gate would open fully, and two long narrow boats had jammed hard together on their way in, and couldn't get out of the jam. One of the two had had to be towed out before the lock could be used. As Grace pulled Kantara in alongside the boat we were sharing with, it became obvious to her that the same thing was going to happen to her if she continued, so she reversed out, and the two boats had to take the lock solo - a long process!

The rest of the journey to Willington was uneventful, but it was getting late, and the very strong, gusty wind slowed us considerably. The scenery was lovely, though.

Finally arriving at the village, we found it to be a very popular place to moor, and could only stop finally at the far end of the moorings. Too tired to cook, we ate a light meal and slumped! The rain's eased off, but the wind continues unabated.