We’re On The Way Home 22-8-10 to 2-9-10

We set off in good time on Sunday 22^nd to ensure we got to the lock by 9am and arrived in Leeds at 1.30pm.  After lunch we left the Leeds Liverpool and went back on to the River Aire heading for Keadby our entry point to the River Trent.  On the way we passed John & Gale on George and spent a couple of hours caching up with them before mooring for the night at Castleford at 8.00pm, so a long day of just over 12 hours.  Monday we booked our passage through the lock at Keadby on to the Trent but have to be ready to go at 6.am on Wednesday morning so we go upstream with the tide….silly these rivers aren’t they!  We ended up doing another long day, mooring at Bramwith Lock on the Stainford & Keadby Canal which is part of the Sheffield & South Yorkshire Navigation mooring at 8.30pm having done 22 1/4 mls, stopping for lunch and rain and then dinner and rain.  Tuesday we did the final leg of 15 mls in the pouring rain but arrived at Keadby at 3pm in the sunshine.  Wed 25^th we were out on the River Trent by 6.30am, following another boat Katynka with Ian and Diane.  They had done this route before and had a chart so knew where all the sand banks were so we kept quite close.  They did not go very fast though as I was keen to nip along and take advantage of the strong flow while it lasted.  Still we got to Torksey at 10 .30 which was the first place that we could stop.  We had decided that we had time to pop down the Fossdyke Navigation which later becomes the River Witham and ends up in Boston.  We only went to Saxilby where we had arranged to meet up with Lady G again.  The following day we took a bus to Lincoln and had lunch and a look round and managed to take in a roof tour of the cathedral which was very interesting.  Friday 27th we went back to Torksey and out onto the Trent again and motored down to Newark where we are staying for the bank holiday weekend before we move on.  In the evening we went to a jazz evening in a local pub.  Sat we lazed in Newark and in the evening we were invited out to drinks on board Mirage, a wide beam dutch barge, with David and Mary.  We had a guided tour as well and it was very smart.  On Sunday as the weather was not brilliant I decided to change the oil in the engine and did one or two other maintenance bits.  Mon 31^st after lunch we had live music in the park opposite the castle then Clive and I went to a beer festival and then in the evening had a picnic whilst watching 3 brass band in the park and fireworks afterwards.  Tues and Wed saw us finishing our journey on the Trent and an impromptu BBQ just by the final lock as it was our last evening with Sue & Clive.

On Thursday we went our separate ways, them to the Trent & Mersey heading for Coventry and us down the River Soar towards Leicester well on the way to our final destination of Reading.