Hot but no hurry.

 With the heat and time we had moored up on the landing of Forest Low Lock and after a picnic tea watched a wonderful evening again

Helen and Amy enjoying the cooling evening on a lock beam.

As we made our way up the Forest Locks the scenery was very pleasant in deed and not far away from the East Coast Mainline at all.

After stopping at Charlie's Lock to fill with water and dump the rubbish we had a pleasant stretch to reach Ranby. There is a lovely walk through the sweet chestnuts of the woodlands. After Forest Top Lock the weed got a little worse but still nothing to stop us enjoying the trip. Ranby bends make you keep attention to steering, especially with the weed situation, as it does pay to stray off the line and into the weed!

Scofton Church stands out from the surrounding trees of Osberton estate. The church of St. John the Evangelist was built in 1833 for the nearby Osberton Hall, which you can't see from the canal, but it was sold in 2011 for £3.35 million and was enjoying extensive work when we last passed this way. The stable block is next to the canal and looked well in use with horse boxes and necks and manes a plenty sticking out of stalls.

There were even some of the horses out on a bit of a hack as we approached Osberton Lock.

Kids were enjoying themselves as in the canal as we approached Kilton Low Lock but we were soon up and approaching the aquaduct over the River Ryton. Just by the aqueduct is the former Bracebridge Sewage pumping station with it chimney still intact, otherwise gutted. In 2012 there was planning permission granted for 24 two beds apartment at a round £300,000 at the time. However the place was up for auction in 2018 and still nothing seems to have happened. I thought it would make a great climbing wall club, and abseiling from the chimney.

The approaches to Worksop are what you would expect from a town, but not too much plastic etc about. The weed was aplenty though. We have heard tales of woe from many folk about stopping in the town, and to be fair there doesn't seem to be anywhere too appealing to stop in the middle anyway. It would be so easy to create safe moorings too. Last time here we stopped just outside of town but this time we were continuing onwards. One good think is that the Straddle Warehouse is now in use rather than derelict when we last came. A gym and a cafe are on the site now. The pub next to Town Lock was closed so it wasn't so many people about today. The usual couple of blokes hiding under the bridge for some reason!

The last locks of the day were nice and close together so we were soon up Shireoaks three locks, especially with three of us working together. There were lots of folk about on the tow path to chat too as well.

Just after the top Shireoaks lock is the Marina and the tight turn into the former colliery loading basin. I made the turn in with little trouble to find things had changed and the visitor moorings are now outside on the towpath and not in the basin. As we had filled up with water earlier in the day we turned round and went back out to find a spot outside. I walked through, using the key to get into the basin, with the rubbish we had collected as we came up the canal.

Last time we were here this boat was still under construction just close to the service block in the basin. Here it all finished and having made the trip down to West Stockwith at least once. It is a 'cuckoo boat' which were the distinctive boats that were only found on the Chesterfield Canal. The last one was constructed in the 1930's and rotted away not too long ago. This one was constructed by volunteers using all the old methods. The last one was called 'Dawn' and the new one is called 'Dawn Rose'.

The pictures in this blog are actually a minor miracle as they are taken using a camera that fell out of my pocket in Keadby and straight into the water. I managed to fish it out in about 15 mins and took out the SD card and battery and opened up every opening and left it. After a couple of days I put the battery in and it whirred etc. This morning I tried again and it is all working, with a little blurring of the lens. Well impressed it works at all.