Wednesday 12 May 2010

Leicester To Barrow On Soar. 9 Locks.





72 hours of nastiness later.............Thanks for nothing KFC.













Continuing from where I left off. We were soon locked down onto the River Soar properly, not just the little joins every now and then that we have been doing.







The Rivers are such different places to the canals, for one thing, there is a lot more water under the baseplate giving the propeller something it can really get its teeth into. Ubique fairly bounded along even at normal cruising revs.




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Weirs are another feature and can be quite spectacular in their own way.
This was at Mountsorrel, we had planned to moor here at the well publicised visitor moorings, but upon arriving we found that there were only two moorings in the whole place and they, of course, were taken.
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This would have been a great site for us in our camping days and we would have loved it, but looking at all those vans in there now......... it does look a bit cramped.
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We finally came to rest at Barrow upon Soar just past a huge Weir. Rallentando moored alongside us (Breasting up) as even here this was the only mooring left.
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There is a boatyard here that hires day boats, Pedalos, rowing boats and these odd looking contraptions.
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Now call me old fashioned if you must,
sitting on a bike strapped to a couple of floats with a baby in the seat behind you, doesn't seem all that safe to me.
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But then launching yourself out onto a piece of canal with twelve ton narrowboats moving up and down, some of which are being steered by holiday makers with twenty minutes experience, that sends the needle off the scale for me.
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Our fellow travellers left the mooring on Saturday, as it was blowing a gale and raining heavily we gave it a miss.
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Fire alight, telly on and feet up............ Thats the stuff.
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Some may call us fairweather sailors, but we were warm and dry fairweather sailors.
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Until next time.....................................
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