Our 4 days in Castle Marina were up and so time to move on. Out along the canal – two locks and then out onto the mighty river Trent. Down thru two massive locks – all automatically operated by lock keepers and thence to a secure and very pretty mooring at Gunthorpe. Been here before and like the rural outlook, the two pubs, restaurants and a beach for Toby to swim.
Meanwhile, Viv steers us out of Nottingham
“Don’t get me started” but here’s one of the new CRT signs and part of their entirely spurious & superfluous rebranding excercise, oh, and “we’re not going to change all the signs straight away as that’s too expensive”. Well, here’s a very out of the way one and the second I’ve seen today. No facilities at all along this 2 mile stretch through a CITY, just the feeble and often vandalised ones at each end. No refuse points, no water, not even a dog poo bin! Come on CRT – get together with Nottingham City Council and actually WELCOME boaters to this great city.
Out on to the Trent and down to Holme Lock . . .
And who should we bump into (not lit.) but Emma on her “water bike”, pedalling for the great litter campaign, litter picking as she goes. She’s just doing a stretch of the river but a team of water bikers will do 1,000s of miles. See the Waterbike Collective.
Well done! We’ll see you later.
Plenty of wildlife . . . lots of swallows, herons and even one kingfisher . .
Into Stoke Bardolph lock and then the hour or so down to Gunthorpe
Final spot for a few days . . . Emma did catch us up . . . here she is in Gunthrope lock, her litter pile has increased quite a bit! Brave lass all on her own.
And out onto the Trent – looks quite a lone figure. All the best!
Bye!
Meanwhile, this is what we’ve been promising scaredy dog all day – a swim!
Toby and his beloved Flubber Wubber . . .
