Goodbye to rivers

Today we had a strategic departure planned........Sawley Marina was the first destination as we wanted Fuel and Gas.  Their opening hours are 9-5 but outside of those hours the fuel is self service at 0% tax.......so the aim was to do our own fuel just before they opened and then not have too long to wait until they opened so we could buy gas.
Geoff together with his faithful hound walked up to Long Eaton early for the paper and a couple of things and then we went across to the marina.   Someone else had obviously had the same idea but luckily they were just leaving.

On departure we had a flood lock to go through as we are still on the wide river

All this to carry a pipe across

All about to change...River Trent and Shardlow marina to the left, the Derwent departs to the right and we are going straight ahead back to the quiet canals.

Sad to say goodbye to the Soar as it has been a pretty and very benign river.  However we have been lucky as we understand that after heavy rain it can rise very quickly.   The forecast for Sunday is for the first gale of autumn.........we shall see......

Long Horse Bridge the new (2011) bridge with full public bridleway allowing access over the river Trent for walkers, cyclists and horses

Just one lock before reaching Shardlow..........this was our first wide lock without an accompanying boat this year......not my favourite occupation.    No matter how slowly Geoff opens the paddles the incoming water plays havok

After the lock there is mooring space that looks reasonable were it not for the proximity of sewage works......

However our intention was to moor near Epiphany as we had been invited to supper for John's Fish Pie......
Initially we thought we were out of luck as all the spaces by Epiphany were occupied........we managed to get in a little further on and just when we were securely moored....all 3 boats by Epiphany decided to move!!!!    Nothing that a little reversing couldn't handle.........

Safely moored....time to set up the satellite!!!

The sun dared to peek out in the afternoon and since we were on a nice high mooring I managed to paint the side...............followed in the evening with a cosy relaxed supper aboard Epiphany.......such a hard life........
Total distance:2.02 miles 
Elapsed time:2h22m48s
 Locks:2Bridges:6 
Average speed:0.85 mph (1.69 lock/mph)