Lyra's Travels

Tuesday 28th August 2012
On Monday Paul and I took a wander along the riverside while he hunted out some more caches. The walk yielded 3 more before we returned to the boat. This was their last day with us and they planned to take us out for lunch before leaving. The Basin had provided a great meal for us on Friday evening that they had decided it was the place to try again. Once more they turned up trumps with a wonderful selection.
After they had left, we had a bit  of tidy around, and I finished off the tin of biscuits they left behind, I'm greedy!
This morning we set off hoping to make it to Trent Lock. At Loughborough Lock we teamed up with a boat also intending to go to the end of river.
As we travelled north out of Loughborough the river widens and the scenery once again becomes a wide view of the Soar valley. Here the river also appears to deepen and our speed increases with that depth. We're making good time, and realise that we'll easily get to our goal and will have time to go further. We decide on Beeston, where there are full services, and hopefully room for overnight mooring.
At the services there was a boat already on the mooring. The owner had only just recovered his boat from being sunk. Apparently, while moored against a hard side, a log got trapped inside between the wall and boat. Another boat came down the canal a bit too fast and the resulting wash jostled his boat  so hard the log damaged his wooden hull.
Tomorrow we will get to Nottingham fairly early and do some provisioning. The weather forecast isn't good so we may elect to stay there if it does. If not we'll press on to Holme Pierpont, where the National Water Sports Centre is located.