On the river all day

When Buddy and I went out for our early morning walk we realised what a pleasant spot we had moored in on Sunday night.

We carried on down the Trent during the day starting off at Stoke lock just below where we were moored.

The lock keeper proudly told us that he holds the record for having the largest number of narrowboats in a Trent lock at once.  He reckoned he had 17.  All the locks are 165 feet long by about 30 feet broad so you can get four narrowboats alongside each other.  To get 17 would have meant that they weren’t particularly long.

It was very quiet on the river again and we only saw s few boats on the move all day.

Cows were cooling in the water in many places.

Karen just managed to get a shot of a cormorant and we saw our first kingfisher for a fortnight.

This is Gunthorpe road bridge built in 1927 to replace the original bridge.  It is the only road bridge across the river on the 24 mile stretch between Nottingham and Newark.  Even though it is relatively modern we felt it had nice lines.

We went down Gunthorpe lock at lunchtime…

…and the scenery changed as the east bank was right against the low hills and flood plains stretched out to the west.  Very difficult to get the view with a standard camera shot though.

We went through our last lock of the day at Hazelford having covered nine miles.

We turned to face upstream and moored up just below the lock.  
 

The lock was built on Hazelford island so it is only accessible to lock keepers and boaters mooring there.  There were lots of paths mown over the island and we went for a walk around it.  There were plenty of wild flowers but unfortunately we saw very few butterflies but did see our first Ringlet of the year.

Some people prefer rivers and others prefer canals.  We are still canal lovers; rivers feel restrictive because mooring places are limited.  Rivers, by their nature, tend to be hidden from the surrounding views so tend to look the same when cruising along them.   One advantage is that you rarely get people peering in the boat as the mooring areas are often prohibited to the public.

After dinner we went for a walk off the island which meant crossing this footbridge.  The gates are operated by boaters keys to keep the public away from the lock.


We walked along the side of the river...

...and came across this unusual gate which perplexed Buddy...

...as he could go through a gate but found it was still there!