Gunthorpe to Newark

We had a lazy start at Gunthorpe and Al read her book in bed while Del did the brasses. It was a bit cloudy today but still pleasant. It was a full pontoon of boats last night, and by 10.00am they were all gone. We backed off the pontoon at 10.30am and headed down to the lock on our own and the gates opened in front of us. We exited the lock to a rage of foam from the weir and joined the flow again.

It was a long straight section next to Hoveringham and we were followed by loads of runners, walkers, and cattle.

The river flows through a wooded section and care has to be taken to avoid the shallow sides in places. We had the gliders flying overhead from Syerston Airfield, after being towed up, and then buzzing us as they landed close by.

At Hazelford Lock we had to wait for a boat to emerge before we could enter, but were soon given the green light and dropped the seven foot to be on our way again..

The northerly wind had got up in the exposed places and things got pretty cold. Out of the wind things were very calm, and the river turned from waves to being a mirror.

We got to Farndon and headed towards Staythorpe power station.

The river went right past the chimneys and under all the power cables till we got to Averham weir. This is an open weir and we can imagine very tricky at high water levels.

You have to keep well over to the left as you have to the get across to the Newark Dyke.

Things seemed to warm up and calm down when we got to this canal section into the town.

We had a boat pass us here.

 It is full of old mills, for which it was built for, and oozed history.

As you get to Mill lock and another old mill, the Newark Town lock is in front of you. The boat that passed us was waiting and then another one joined us before we were lowered down to the castle walls.

All three boats were hunting for a mooring and we managed to put the bow onto a low section of wall so it was easy to get on and off Derwent6.

Opposite us are CRT moorings with a pontoon and shoreline next to their office, no chance of getting one of them.. You can pop into the CRT office and get an electric card, which would have been handy.
We shut down Dewent6 and then walked round to the Kiln (CRT's office) and picked up a chart for travelling up the tidal Trent.
We then had a walk around town and just missed the market.

We also walked round St Mary's chapel where the organist was practicing for his evening performance, and gave us a tingle as we walked round..

This was far better than the one at Nottingham and well worth a look in..

The sun had come out for a bit and we thought it a good idea to go back to Derwent6 and pop a top or two, with nibbles of course.
This got us in the mood to go out in the evening..  Al changed up some Tesco vouchers and we had a meal in Pizza Express for a tenner, we also had nice views of the castle.

It was a very short walk back to Derwent6 and we chilled before our early start in the morning where Derwent6 will be back in salt water..