Ilkestone

As we were near the abandoned Nottingham canal we went for a walk on Tuesday morning to try and find it.  On our way there we went through a meadow and were really happy to see our first Meadow Browns of the year – our harbingers of summer.  They were first seen in the South three weeks ago which shows how far behind we are up here!  This is a male…

…and this is a female; unfortunately the sun had gone in so she wouldn’t open her wings, but she is a lot lighter than the male…

…and this is Karen butterflying.

We soon found the canal and parts of it still had some water.

This bridge across the abandoned canal is still intact.  Buddy and I were told to keep out of the picture but I managed to get a cheeky arm in like “Where’s Wally?”.  That reminded us of a story we heard, that to keep their children quiet on long journeys, a couple used to colour in the Wallys before handing the books to their children.

We found a swing bridge that still seemed to operate.

We made it a circular walk and rejoined the Erewash canal that would start backtracking down in the afternoon.  This silly family of coots had built their nest practically in the centre of the canal.


There were several signs along the tow path that simply said "Shortcut".  They tickled us as they didn't say where the shortcut was to.


When we were back at the basin we walked along the section of the abandoned Cromford canal that is still in water and is used by residential boat owners.
 

After returning to the boat and having lunch we set off.   We had to make a 180 degree turn here to go back the way we had come up.  It was really tricky as we are the maximum length that can turn in this basin.  The sides of the basin weren’t parallel so we had to find the widest spot by trial and error.

On our way back down the canal we noticed a milestone counting down the distance to the River Trent.  We hadn't noticed them on the way up as the undergrowth was so long and this one had only been cut this morning.

In the afternoon we went back down eight locks and moored south east of Ilkestone.  Judith (my sister) and Nigel and their youngest son Ned popped in to see us which was really nice.