Now in Nottingham.

It was very nice waking up on the really quiet mooring and looking out of the window from our bed with a cup of tea watching the sand and house martins with there young, tufted duck, canada geese, oyster catchers and gold finches. It was difficult to get out and get started. After breakfast we went for a walk round the Water Sports Centre.

Oyster Catcher.

The geese round the water sports centre are quite tame as this canada goose gosling shows.

The straight for rowing etc is over a mile long. There was a women's four on the water as were walked past.

 The canoe slalom in the foreground with the Holme lock approach and then the Colwich Sluices. They were opened in the 1950's following a couple of serious floods in Nottingham in the 1940's. The water level is constantly monitored and if above the normal level one gate is lifted a little. If it continues to rise it rises a bit more etc until it is fully open. Then the next gate opens and so on. This may protect Nottingham but I'm not too sure what it does for those down stream?

It was only about an hour at slow speed until we got to Meadow Lane Lock where you leave the River Trent and enter the Nottingham Canal. I went slowly as Helen was baking and I didn't want to disturb her until they were in the oven! The lock is a more normal wide beam and Helen had to actually use a windlass and open the gates her self! Just inside the canal we stopped to fill up with water as it was nice and handy. The canal takes boats round an un-navigable stretch of the Trent.

Meadow Lane Lock on the Nottingham Canal.

The tow path was very busy with walkers and cyclists the closer we got to the city centre. Just before the Castle Lock there are a number of old waterways warehouses that have survived and are still in use, now for pubs and clubs it seems.

British Waterways warehouse now a Comedy Club.

Fellows, Morton and Clayton warehouse now split into two pubs, one with the name of the old company and the other called the Canal House and advertises the fact that there is a canal running through it with a boat in the pub. You can just see above the boat on the left the arch into the covered loading bay. We went for a drink in the Fellows, Morton and Clayton pub but the Canal House says they have a hundred different beers!

Just by Castle Lock is this. I am not sure what they were the overseers of but a nice way to be preserved for prosperity. (I have just looked it up and it seems that this is a parish boundary marker and the parishes were defined by administration of the Poor Laws, and the people named weer Overseers of the Poor Laws in the said parish).

We moored up a little out of the centre near a shopping park and marina. The tow path is still busy but we will have more chance of getting a bit on sun on the solar panels. Later we walked in to town to go and pick up my tickets for the train to go home in a while.

Nottingham Station. This is the third one on the site and was designed by local architect Albert Edward Lambert and was completed in 1900. It has just been revamped. The sandstone and design reminds me of Lutyens New Delhi.

We then went to find the Tourist Information to get a street map and find out what we can do whilst we are here. We had a walk about to get the feel of it and then went back via the Fellows Morton and Clayton pub and had a very pleasant pint of Archers by Lincoln Green Brewery. We then went a little out of our way to get find the brewery tap of Castle Rock Brewery, the Vat and Fiddle. It was a fifties building but the beer was very nice. I think that we will go back to sample other beers as I settled on the Harvest Pale. We were very tired when we got back to the boat for some reason so I predict we wont be going dancing tonight!