Keadby To Thorne. Lots Of Swing Bridges.

Onto the Stainforth & Keadby canal, and we lose Crunchie.........for a while.

After the may days along the Trent what a relief it is to get back on the northern canals.

The water is so clear up here you can watch the Pike hunting as you go by, and we only saw two other boats over the course of the whole day........this is much more like it and a million miles away from the chaos that is Braunston.

Our first bridge of the day was this skewed railway crossing. This bridge is manned twenty four hours a day seven days a week. All you have to do is toot your horn and wait for instructions. These came in the form of the signalman hanging out of the window and waving for us to stop.

Five minutes later and the grandly named Trans Pennine Express - with its two coaches - came trundling across....... This was always going to be a good day.

The bridge itself is a masterpiece of design, the track slews across the canal at about forty five degrees and disappears into the bank. This is it on its way back out.

Nearly across here. The moving bits that carry the bridge slide away at ninety degrees to the canal. Can you imagine the math used to work that lot out?

D was in her element along here, more or less every bridge was a "stop the traffic bridge".
There is something quite satisfying about working these bridges though, maybe it has something to do with being able to control the flow of the cars - in a power mad sort of way - .

There is always danger to be looked out for on the waterways, especially if you are in a fifty five foot high narrowboat. We are fifty five foot long and stand about five feet out of the water. Therefore, unless we were winched up by the bow to become vertical there was no way we were going to connect with those 132,000 volts....... We were cautious as the sign demanded, but we deemed it safe to pass, it was.......result!








The rail line follows the canal all the way along here and the train drivers, to a person, gave us a toot on their horn and a good old wave as they passed us by.

This lift bridge operated so quickly it caught me out as I was still on the side when it was nearly open. This must be due to the road it carries being very busy indeed and a swift turnaround is required.

This one on the other hand was so slow we didn't think we were going to get through. It wasn't working properly at all. D got it open just enough to squeeze Ubique through, with a bit of grease on the sides, and we were at our moorings for the night.

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There was no letting Crunchie off this evening after the fuss we had with her this morning. We let her out for a morning run as she has only had pontoons to get on for a while now, and she promptly shot over into the brush and got herself completely lost.

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An hour and a half later of calling , Crunchie, Crunchie, Crunchie, we were rewarded with a plaintive miaow from deep within the scrub. Lots of fuss later and we had grabbed her.

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I'm not sure she has quite recovered from that as yet because the doors are open now due to the heat and she is staying put.

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Until next time............................

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