Courier challenge completed successfully!

Still not a lot of sightseeing done today as we’ve had to try and get the power inverter sorted out. We cannot live without the means to charge our phones and Barry’s camera unfortunately, so it must be either repaired or a replacement sourced. After walking around looking for somewhere such as a British Waterways office to give an address to a courier (no postcode on a narrowboat of course!), we decided to just use the pub up the road. Barry’s first quote for the courier to get the inverter to the place it was manufactured (in Droitwich, just up the road from my parents!), was over £40! The next one was just over £10 (http://www.senditnow.com/), so no prizes for guessing which one we went for. They provided a very speedy service, and funnily enough the staff at The Green Dragon were happy for us to sit and have a couple of pints while we waited!

So now we just have to wait for the call to tell us how much it will cost to repair the unit; or if they think it’s irreparable (cynically we will suspect because they want us to buy a new one!) we’ll get it back and try and find someone to repair it. So fingers crossed we haven’t got to shell out lots more money …

Not the 'Green Dragon' pub, but just up the canal - another shot of the 'Witch & Wardrobe'

Lovely swans with Millenium statue

Another shot of the 'Glory Hole'

We did manage a walk around Brayford Pool and saw some very interesting ducks that look rather like a turkey's head stuck on a ducks body! As I was saying that to Barry, a Lincolnian (is that you call people from here?) walked past and said that they were actually known to locals as ‘turkey ducks’. Bless them, they are such ugly things but I’m sure their mother loved them! There’s also lots of life around the pool with bars and restaurants; it must be buzzing at night-time, especially when the university is in full swing.

'Turkey Duck'... Looks like its head's on inside out to me

Lincoln was a thriving port many years ago, mainly due to the cloth trade, with large ships coming up the Humber Estuary and along the Trent. Foolishly, the Brayford Pool was almost filled in in the 60's and used for a car park; what a blessing someone sensible made them see sense and they changed their minds, as it's a very important and colourful part of Lincoln.

View across Brayford Pool

Old Warehouse frontage (Seimens)

The cathedral certainly commands attention

The guilotine lock just along from our mooring

Got to throw another housing estate in to stop any expats getting homesick!

A more photogenic housing estate

Powerless in Lincoln!

Tuesday 14 July

Unfortunately the heavy downpour yesterday evening enabled rain to get under one of our new vent covers that Barry hadn’t had chance to seal up yet and water dripped onto the power inverter. So we’re now without 240v power and left with only 12v, hence we are not able to charge phones or the camera battery – horror of horrors!

A sad looking inverter

Barry spent the morning doing some engine and general man’s maintenance stuff (!) and took the inverter down from the wall to dry out.

Our shiny looking engine. Checked oil, battery water & refilled grease cylinder for propeller shaft, plus cleaned the bilge pump

These geese came and had a snarling match with the dog on the boat behind us

After a short drive down the canal, we arrived in Lincoln at lunchtime. It’s a long lead up to get into the town, with a huge array of residential moorings along the canal; some of them look like they haven’t left the side for years! Once into Lincoln there is a large basin called Brayford Pool, where there are dozens of large cruisers moored. The canal then continues on under bridges and we found a place to moor shortly afterwards.

Wouldn't trust this one!

Looked like a very old barge

Not sure what this one's all about


Brayford Basin, lovely now but must've been an eyesore a few years ago


Through the 'Glory Hole' or 'Murder Hole' as it was called. Cafe and shops overhead

Other side, don't Goggle search 'Glory Hole' you may be shocked!

We had a quick look around Lincoln as it was late in the afternoon by then, and bought some food supplies. We’ll probably stay here for a couple of days to have a good look around, there seems to be a number of things to see and do (http://www.lincoln.gov.uk/ or http://www.visitlincolnshire.com/).

Lincoln Cathedral, an impressive sight for miles around




The Usher Gallery and well kept gardens

Lincoln High Street

Town Archway on High Street

'The Witch & Wardrobe' pub

The heavens opened up again in the evening, thunder & lightning, The old warehouses opposite our mooring, now part of Siemens http://www.seimens.co.uk/

The Tide is high, so we're moving on ...

Some more photos from Sunday in Newark-on-Trent

Newark Castle and Trent Bridge from our boat

Our view across the river with the "Castle Barge" floating Restaurant/Bar

Newark Castle in late light

Trent Bridge with Northern Pride on the left

Newark Castle ruins as an upsidedown reflection

More of the Castle, very photogenic!

Part of old building now a Bar

The church tower through the canal side houses

As we were getting ready to set off to the supermarket, I got chatting with a couple who were looking down at our boat. It turned out, spookily, that they were from New Zealand and are considering doing exactly what we are somtime in the future! I think their names were Paul and Sue, but could be completely wrong! Anyway, we invited them on board to show them our Pride of the North and the map of our journey so far. Sue originally comes from Newark but informed me she spent 8 years sailing to New Zealand with her husband who then wanted to return to England. Quite rightly she said “I don’t think so thank you!” and remained in Auckland where she has lived now for 8 years and continues to reside on her boat, caring for other peoples boats when they are away. What a great job! Paul has a boat next to hers and they share a cat that goes from one boat to the other – they also take the cat out walking with them on a harness! How cool is that?! We’ve given them our blog address so hope they follow our travels and get in touch again.

Onto the tidal Trent today, so we firstly visited the British Waterways office just along from our mooring after the slight delay. We found some very helpful people there, one of whom wanted Barry’s ‘Popeye’ t-shirt as it was his nickname! Barry did offer to swop it for a BW jumper, or his blue jumper and name badge, but although tempted, he sadly declined. They phoned ahead for us and we found that if we wanted to go to Lincoln today we had to leave immediately. So we hurried back to the boat, got sorted and set off.

British Waterways offices at Newark

Two huge locks were encountered shortly afterwards, both with very friendly and accommodating lock-keepers which was so very refreshing after Saturday’s experience! I think he was a one off, after a long day, and seeing a boat with people messing about, just lost his rag!

The first of the big locks for the day

Again not many bridges crossing The Trent

A Crested Grebe, common around Newark

I remembered that my father used to have relatives in Lincoln, so I texted and asked if there was anyone still there. It turned out that a couple of distant cousins still live about a half hour’s drive away so he phoned them and gave us our contact details and we arranged to meet up later. Unfortunately it took us longer to get to the canal to Lincoln than we estimated, despite no stops along the way other than the three locks, and Dave and Rosalyn weren’t able to wait so late. They’re off to Hull tomorrow but may be able to pass through Lincoln tomorrow evening and come and visit; we hope so.

That’s one of the challenges of travelling by narrowboat, you can try and guess how long a journey will take at 3-4 miles an hour, but you can still be an hour or more out due to different obstacles along the way.

The Trent from Cromwell Lock was a vast body of water and we passed a few huge (well they looked huge compared to our wee boat!) barges travelling up river. Luckily each time Barry was driving the boat rather than me, even though I did take a turn for 2 hours—phew!

The mighty Cromwell Lock, then out onto tidal waters

We were a bit lost in it

One of the 600 ton gravel barges that come charging up the river. Caught us on a corner so had to pass on the left

A converted windmill I think

There were a number of large power stations on the way, and Barry informed me that 25% of the England and Wales’ electricity is produced around here.

The first power station had five cooling towers

The next one more impressive with eight!

A little cottage on the bank at Torksey

The entrance to Torksey Lock

The power station from Torksey Lock

Bit of a contrast

Very confusing lock system, there are also gates to keep The Trent out when in flood

Torksey Lock

Found a boat for Dylan

As we came into Saxilby, just outside of Lincoln, we failed to outrun a thunderstorm. At one stage it felt as though the lightning struck across the boat, but although it was scarily close, it was the static from the electricity pylons which I could feel. The gap between lightning and thunder was less than a second, and Barry actually saw it strike the ground near to the boat—yikes!! Very heavy rain, so heavy that it was difficult to see more than a couple of yards of canal.

The storm coming at us... at more than 4 mph

Looks like it's checking out the pylons!!

Boy did it come down!

Once moored in Saxilby, we had dinner then went to ‘The Anglers’ pub where there was a darts match on. They were playing on a very unusual board that we’ve never seen before, one with only doubles and no trebles. Most bizarre!

The "Lincoln Board" as it's called