Almost at Rotherham

A short cruise today and only three locks, all push button operated.  Replacement of the locks was mentioned in the last post and today we saw one of the original locks.

The old version is slightly narrower and much shorter.

More rural cruising today except for a Brathwaite tower tank that appeared on the skyline.

Braithwaite started building the panels for these prefabricated modular tanks in 1901.  The military found them particularly useful and I can remember constructing a few of them in my army days.  They say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery and I note there are a number of Chinese manufacturers selling a very similar panel.

Jan worked Waiouru up through Rotherham Lock and then we sat in it for 30 minutes whilst using the lock side water tap to top up the tank.  You can get an appreciation of the size of the lock in this next photo.

All that water for one small narrowboat!

Whilst we were waiting a fibreglass boat appeared from the opposite direction.  Both Jan and I thought it wanted to use the lock but the crew winded (turned) and moored around the corner on the 48 hour moorings.

Why do the crews of some small boats decide to moor in the middle of the mooring or leave gaps between them.  It appeared I would have to ask them to move forward.

I’m not going to be too critical because this narrowboat owner had moored on the lock landing when he could have joined us around the corner from where I took the photo.

It wasn’t a good decision on his part because the Exol Pride arrived around 2pm.  The tanker is so big it couldn’t exit the lock with the narrowboat on the landing.  Consequentially he was required to move by CRT to a mooring in front of us.  It would have been less effort for the boater to have done that in the first place.

I phoned CRT today to confirm our booking for Tinsley Flight tomorrow.  We were advised to depart the mooring at 8am in order to meet the lock keeper at Holme Lock at 9.30.  There are at least 12 manual locks to be done so it should be a good workout.