Quite warm today with much less wind. For most of the time there was plenty of blue sky but occasionally cloud thickened and became overcast.
The Trent and Mersey Canal has locks at varying distances between them so we had some lengthy stretches of up to an hour between locks but others came quicker. It was a bit of a surprise at the end of the day to count up and find that we had only done 9 locks. It felt a bit more than that.
Before long we were navigating through Burton on Trent. Although the canal is in the outskirts of the town for about three miles, the main centre developed away from the canal.
We saw from the map that there appeared to be a supermarket close to the canal at the end of the town - although Google Street View indicated that it was a local Co-Op. We did not need too much at this stage - a larger re-stock of the larder is expected in Loughborough.
At James Brindley Way bridge we pulled alongside a pub - there were no steps up from the towpath to the bridge and, in the end, the access via the pub car park was longer than the walk from the bridge to the shop! It seemed to be mainly a lunch and home-time market so rather limited for us. However, paper, milk and some reduced croissants were welcome.
After leaving the town the canal follows the main road once again - the River Dove passes underneath both at one point where the old road bridge in between still stands much as it has for a long time.
Beside bridge 26 is another surprisingly grand house - but we could not work out the significance of the roundel at the top.
O! you do look so beautiful!
We stopped briefly at Willington for disposals but as the very short mooring space was already occupied by a boat filling with water so we could not loiter for long in the winding hole.
A boat moored at the marina just above Stenson Lock has a different motto! (A Lister powered boat goes everywhere?)
Just before Swarkestone Lock we passed a CRT dredger but did not see where it had been working.
From Burton the canal takes wide beam boats and the locks take two narrow boats. We shared all of these with a hire boat returning to Sawley Marina. They were keen to get there by 6 pm as they have to pay a £15 fine for every hour late!
Another pleasant view. Rather greener this time.
Aston Lock is notorious as the bottom gates open quickly when the lock is empty. Close them and walk back to the top gates, they will be open once more! Knowing this, we ran water through a paddle before trying to close them - it worked! In the end we took little longer over this lock than any of the others.
The mileposts had been relentlessly counting down towards Shardlow and eventually we arrived at the lock. However this is not the end of the canal - there is another mile or so before Derwent Mouth Lock where we joined the River Trent.
Immediately below the lock is the more famous of the warehouses that were once the basis of the very lucrative trade at this inland port. Others have been splendidly converted to high quality houses.
The village is now protected by a flood gate - fortunately not closed today (but see our experiences back in 2012) with neither warning light holding us up.
Finally the last (or first if coming the other way!) lock at Derwent Mouth. Spotted this sign - probably a bit far to go tonight!
And then out on to the wide Trent.
Surprisingly, Sawley Flood Lock was closed - usually it is possible to pass straight through with both sets of gates open. However, we did notice that the river level was just on the border between green and orange.
It was now a bit too late to risk continuing down the river to the junction with the Soar as we were uncertain of finding a safe mooring so we opted to spend the night in Sawley Cut, with plenty of space available.
20.5 miles - 9 locks
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