21st July 2011 - Into Bandit Country!

Because the reputation of passing through Leicester by boat is so bad (getting things thrown at you, people jumping onto the boat and many more such annoying things!) I decide to leave at first light which turns out to be 0430! Obviously nobody else is so paranoid or stupid so I have the canal to myself. It's also a plan which works in my favour, as the majority of locks seem to default to full, some even have self opening top gates, so rather than follow somebody and have to set the locks, about 12 of todays 17 were set for me, and I could drive straight into 2 or 3 of them. I see a pair of Kingfishers early on, but other than a couple of insomniac dog walkers, there's no one! Dunns Lock has flowers laying by the side, so something very bad has happened here, that's the second this trip as the Stourport bottom staircase had a fatality shortly before I arrived there. These places are dangerous, people need to learn that!

Despite the nasty reputation, it's a very pleasant rural cruise, you'd never know you were only 2 or 3 miles from the centre of Leicester! I pass the Walkers Stadium.

The Walkers Stadium:

This overlooks Freemans lock and weir, the weir had three herons, looking for breakfast I think!

Freemans weir:

I was going to stop in the city centre, on the castle gardens secure moorings, but they were all taken (and I thought Leicester wasn't popular with boaters!) There were some boats on the towpath moorings, but I wasn't happy to stop on these so I carried on, then it started to rain, brilliant! I hate it here and I'm never coming back!! So I cruise through a couple of miles of urban grot, seems they don't bother with refuse tips here, it's all in the canal, which is now the river soar! Thankfully the rain doesn't last too long and the canal - oops, river, becomes increasingly pleasant. I pass a sort of condom thing.

Condom Thing:

Apparently this is the UK space centre! I'll some convincing to believe that!
I would have stopped at Thurmaston, it was very nice there, but moorings all taken, not my day! I end up just short of Junction Lock in a quiet spot, the official moorings have some serious BW works going on, but there's plenty of room further back. In the process of tying up, I slip off the back, I only get a wet foot, but I've tweaked my back a bit and it's a bit uncomfortable at the moment. Hope it's not a problem with tomorrows locks! There's only 19 to Burton, then I get a rest for a few days. Right, time for a nap.

Today:      15 miles -   17 locks -  9.5 hours
So Far: 552.5 miles - 440 locks - 281 hours