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It was a dry, but cloudy start to the day. We made good time to Middlewich, but queues for the locks slowed us down quite a bit. Once through the first three, we were lucky enough to find the one after the junction all ready for us. I think a boat filling with water was going to use it, but let us through. I decided, since it was lunch time, to get some chips from the chippy there. Just as the boat was going up in the lock it started pouring down, so I quickly ran into the chippy. By the time I’d got the chips Dad had worked through the lock, and was moored on the end of the lock mooring, there was another quick dash across the busy road, and then a good meal. While the chips went down well, I didn’t feel so well later in the day – but I don’t know if it was them or not.

We waited for the rain to stop before we set off again, and made our slow way up “Heartbreak Hill”. We found a good way of doing the flight, with Dad going up to the next lock while the current lock was filling. Once full I would open the gate, get the boat moving out, and drop the paddle. Depending on how fast the boat was moving I either had to get back on to stop it while I closed the gate, but sometimes managed to get the gate shut, and jump on before it got to far.

We realised that it was going to get dark before we reached the top, so we stopped in a longish pound before the last push.

It was raining when we got up, and it was still raining by the time we reached the top of the locks. Dad noticed someone with a Tescos carrier, and so I went off to find it after getting directions. We needed some fundamentals, including loo paper. I tried to ask Dad if he wanted anything else on his mobile, but no answer. I did manage to get through on the PMR walkie-talkies we’d been using on the flight.

There was a long line of boats waiting to use the tunnel when we arrived, and even better a line of boats leaving the tunnel. A few minutes later we were approaching the tunnel entrance. The BW man asked where our tunnel light was, I held up an angle poise mains light we used for such occasions. I said “I don’t want it to get wet”. Little did I realise that some parts of the tunnel were wetter than outside! Great plumes of steam rose from the light as we slid further into the hillside.

Once out, a normally passive stream or drain away was gushing like a good ‘un. We had an easy quite passage down the Stoke flight, but just missed out on the deep lock, typical. Went through the rather short, and disappointing new tunnel, why do people have trouble with this? Surely people can hear the boat in the tunnel.

By the time we had reached the bottom of the Stone flight we had heard many reports of the river flooding into the canal. “It was difficult to see where the canal stopped, and the fields began” said one boater. While the river was well up, and flooding into the plain, it had not got near the canal, and I suspect it was due to blocked, and over loaded by-washes. While one bridge was close on the short chimney we had on the stove, we didn’t have to remove anything off the roof like some of the reports had mentioned. There was no sign of it being any more than a couple of inches higher, so again I was a little disappointed. Seeing rivers in flood is always interesting, if slightly annoying, as most of our boating is done during the summer, so we don’t get to see it often.

We stopped near Great Haywood after finding a nice bit of piling in the dark.

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We got up with a passing boat, it was going the other way, so no worries. Just as we were nearly ready to get going a boat passed slowly. Some joke was made that we should get going before the next one, and I joked if it isn’t already passing us. I got out onto the front deck to find another boat chugging slowly down the cut. I nearly tried to get off in front, but it was just a little to close. Soon after I wished I had pushed in front as she was only going just slightly faster than our tickover. Once at the boats moored at the junction, I had to take our boat out of gear more than it was in gear!

I was glad to see both boats stop at Great Haywood. It seems the woman in the small Lister powered boat was travelling with the other. She obviously had no idea when she used the bank to try and stop, with her husband?/Friend? fending the boat off.

It was a quick painless run to Rugely, even the weather was looking much brighter. Dad wanted to look around Rugely, and while I wanted some socks I decided to stay in the boat, and catch up with much needed video editing before I ran out of tapes. Dad found some socks for me, but had to look around all of Rugely, and found them in a little out of the way store. It was Burger King for lunch, since we had not had one all hols.

There was a good run of boats passing all day, so we decided we had better get off as well. There were kids throwing water bombs at the high bridge near Armitage, we were warned by a boat passing the other way. Dad was ready with a bucket of water, but I knew they would be well out of reach. In fact they were throwing bottles of water, which could have been quite dangerous, but that quickly hid when Dad got his camera out, and only one wildly thrown bomb was released.

The usual queues down the top bit of Fradley locks, but once we reached the junction it was quite all the way down to Alrewas. We had heard on the towpath telegraph that the river section was shut, but the sign on the top lock in Alrewas said otherwise. We continued right down to the river lock, but we soon found out that the bottom gates were locked. Since there was no room anywhere else, we stopped on the lock moorings, and then tried to get them to open the lock again. We were told that the lock keeper was coming back at 7:30, but he never turned up till much later. It was dark by then, so we said we would have to wait till the morning.

Day 15 Friday 27th August 2004
Arewas to Burton

The lock keeper was due to open the lock at 6:30am, and since we were on the lock mooring we decided we had better be up, and ready. As it turned out no one else was about at that time in the morning so we could have had a little lie in. Once he had opened the lock we were out on the flow. It was no worse than a neap tide on the tidal Trent, but the lock keeper had mentioned that they were very worried about one boat the day before when they started going backwards! Since the flow was less than 4 mph (I’m guessing no better than 3 mph), there are some really slow boats on the canals! Even my SR3 can push my 60 footer at 4.5 mph (and I’m sure it’s under prop’d).

We stopped in Barton Turns to fill with fuel, and get a (free) shower. We were at our mooring in Burton before lunch, which is a new experience for us, never reaching the rally site before at least that night. We booked out at 12:15pm on Monday as we wanted to beat the rush, and while we were at the rally site had a nosey around before everyone was set up.

E11a was about ¾” of a mile from the rally site (upstream), and right next to the loading bays for Bass (or whatever it is these days, Coors?). Our neighbours had tied their springy ropes loosely, and were bouncing about with every passing boat. We were hard aground, so rattled on the gravel as their boat pulled us about.

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Since the walk was such a killer we spent all day at the site, including lunch. They knew how to charge for the food there. No wonder the WRG grub stall had a long queue. Saturday was dry all day, and even had spells of sun. A huge bang signified the beginning of the WWII re-enaction, which I wanted to see, so we ran to the arena. Half of it had finished by the time I found a good spot to film from. I had to wait untill the next day to film it all on the second showing.

We met up with David, and Jan from Hotiwitchi – well actually they’ve sold that boat, and their new one is called something else. David was Site Supply Manager, and was always busy, so when we arrived at their boat that evening he had a meeting he had to go to. Jan had been forced? into doing a song and dance routine at the nights entertainments, and was telling us how they were rehearsing without anyone finding out. Once David was back Dad had another good look around their boat, finding out how things fitted together in some hope it would help us.

While Dad went back to the rally site that night, I could not face the walk, so stayed at home. The TV was on the blink, after having trouble starting on Friday. Apparently there is a regulator that often goes wrong.

Day 17 Sunday 29th August 2004
Burton to Burton
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We ended up buying a new flush toilet today, and while the weather was poor at times, and flooded the site out, in between the rain it was sunny, and warm.

We managed to get a mooring closer to the site, by asking at the waterspace office, and we moved up to about 1/2 mile away!

I went down the rally site later in the night for the Illuminated Boats. There was a great atmosphere around the park bridge as the Christian Fellowship boat Kew came down the canal, and one by one people started joining in to “He’s Got the Whole World in His Hands”, ending with the Jazz band! Half way back to the boat was a section where people had lit their houses, and the trees outside, as well as some of the boats. The WRGies added some raunchy-ness with the “live filming” of their 2005 calendar (backlit behind a screen, mind).

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We bought more stuff today, after getting some good deals. We bought a 25 amp mains charger, an alternator controller, soundproofing, and a big barrel of oil! We brought the boat nearer, and moored in an empty spot only a couple of hundred yards from the site.

The lavender boat was moored in an inconvenient spot, and we only just scrapped by, hitting the bottom and causing the drawers to slide out. We were late at the lock, but since there was little traffic we went straight in.

Apperently at Stenson it had been busy all day, but we didn’t have to wait for any boats going down, the canal was nearly empty. We stopped just above Shardlow (on a BW long term mooring we later found out) for the night.

Dad had a look at the TV, and managed to get three 12v spot lights in series to drop the voltage near to the correct level. Since he did not have a schematic, or even a soldering iron, it was a wonder he got it going again, though as the TV picture changed the brightness of the lights altered. I wondered why Dad was so quiet while I was driving along.

A good flow on the river meant we were soon in Nottingham. We needed some shopping, so we visited Sainsbury’s by the tradesman entrance, since the building works had blocked off the access from the canal. Dad had a look around the rest of the industrial estate, and started eying up TV’s in Comet, and Curry’s. We started looking at the LCDs, but I was not very happy about the quality of the cheaper models. We found a nice Ferguson 14” flat screen TV, mains only but took less power than the 12v 10” colour TV we had before. We asked one of the staff walking by, who said they didn’t have any in stock so we enquired about taking the one on the shelf for a discount. The shop assistant went away while we were deliberating. Once we had decided we asked another assistant about it, he took the slip of paper off the shelf, and went to the stock computer.

“We have five of these in stock”, he announced, and so with that we ended up buying a new boxed one instead! The chap who had thought they had none walked buy as we were buying it. It turned out that a delivery had come that day, and he must have missed it – what really got us was that he was warehouse staff and should have know better!

We decided we had better get a bit further that night, even though it was getting dark. Nottingham in the dark is not the best place to be, and two kids at the sharp bend started throwing stones. They must have been less than 10 years old. Two blokes came steaming by in a small fibreglass dingy, we both slowed down when we passed, but after the kids I wasn’t hanging around either and managed 5mph down the last stretch. We thought it safer to stop at Holme lock, rather than on the canal so we went down in the river in near darkness, but the low moon bouncing off the water helped in finding the banks.

We went through Holme lock with Crusader, a St. Johns Ambulance boat. They were going slowly, so we went through on our own at the next lock. When we reached Stoke Lock, we were warned about some barges coming up stream, and asked to give them the deep water. This was a bit like teaching grandmother to suck eggs after meeting Coasters on the Ouse.

We met Humber Trader at Farndon, near Newark, one of the more narrow sections of the river. There was still plenty of room, and it was clear where he wanted to go as he skated around the corner, bow pointing in the air. We passed Eskdale a little futher down the river. We went straight out at Cromwell, as we were happy to push any little tide this far up the river. We reached Torksey just as the sun was setting after shining all day. Dad had got talking to another boat there which had left Cromwell ¾ of an hour before us and had only just arrived.

Two more barges went past after the tide had changed, barges must travel in pairs these days…

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We decided it would be interesting to go in to South Ferriby for the night, which meant we could leave later on the tide. This then meant we could moor at Gainsborough while we waited for the tide. We set off sometime around 8:30am, and went down with the last of the tide. Unfortunately it had turned well before we had reached Gainsborough so we ended up pushing one of the highest springs of the year. We still managed about 3.5 to 4 mph until we reached the bridge, then the flow slowed us to about 2mph – that equates to a flow of about 4.5mph.

We waited on the floating pontoon now at Gainsborough. This operates just like a pay and display car park, and just like and pay and display if you stay ready to leave when the traffic warden comes along you can get away with not paying… While we waited, another two Barges went past, one of them Gladys Lillian.

We set off a few minutes before the top of the tide, and by the time we reached Stockwith it was running down well.

We passed a narrowboat near Keadby, who had left Stockwith sometime around highwater, and were going into the canal there. There were many Coasters being unloaded down the last bit of the Trent, but it was to late for any of them to be moving.

The tide was near rock bottom by the time to neared Reeds Island, and the channel narrowed to little more than 200 foot. Some of the lightships were nearly aground! We reached South Ferriby well before low water Hull, and since there was no water to get near the lock anyway we continued down the river.

With no chance of getting up the River Hull when we arrived we continued down to King George dock. A banana boat, OK so it was a small ship, arrived at the lock just as we neared, and so I got lots of good shots of them against the massive bulk of the Northsea ferry Pride of Rotterdam.

We slowly trundled back up the river as the tide turned, and by the time we had reached the river there was now a more sensible amount of water. The river Hull was still flowing out, even though the rising Humber was now starting to get into its stride. For a change there were many barges in the river, so we moored without having to push through the mud (not that you could get close to the wharfs at that state of the tide).

About an hour later one of the Rix barges that I thought I had heard on the radio earlier had arrived at Old Harbour after leaving Immingham. I was going to wait to see if he could get by OK, but Dad had already let the front rope off, so I had to put my camera down and get going before it had reached us. He turned around at the old river entrance to Victoria Dock, to come up backwards as they usually do.

There was still little water in the river, and we were two hours earlier than we would be normally, so we stopped on a barge near Stoneferry. The sun had set before I realised it would be a good idea to get going, so we ended up going up the rest of the river in the dark. The flow pushed us, and we were soon at Weel. The problem with the tide is that the water rises as well, so the airdraft under the bridge was not quite enough. We stopped on the 40ft narrowboat moored alongside the residential Humber barge moored at the bridge.

Dad awoke early (for a change), due to the banging of the bridge every time a car went over it. I was already awake, but not up. We decided we had better get off before the tide got to high, this was at around 7:30am. I drove the boat up the river, while Dad went back to sleep. We could have stopped at Hull Bridge, but since I was already up and did not feel the need to go back to bed we continued up.

A couple of hours later we reached Hempholme Lock, and soon after 10am we were at the boat club. We stopped in the slip way for a little while, but Dad wanted to go up to Snakeholme, so we set off again. The bridge at Brigham was difficult to open, and I had to push it at the “wrong” end to get the leverage as no balance beam has been placed on it yet, as a winch was due to be sorted out for it.

The bottom gates of Snakeholme Lock looked a bit dry after being left open all summer, so dad filled the lock. As I closed the gates, I noticed someone had gone to the bother of tying the gates open with bailer twine, but I’m not sure what for – maybe just to let any wildlife out.

We got back to Hempholme at about 3pm, and we then drove back to my Dads house in Hull to do my washing before I went back to Northolt at 6:30pm.

While I’m glad the weather wasn’t wall to wall sun, the showers were very annoying this year, and it seems everywhere in the country had the same funny showery weather. All the locks on the Rochdale was very tiring, and I’m glad Julie joined us. All in all a good holiday, and visited some new and interesting places, as well as doing some bits we hadn’t done since I was little (like the Rochdale 9).