We are now in Loughborough moored up outside an office complex on the edge of town. We had hoped to moor in the centre where there is a basin, we imagined something like Camden Lock or the Gas Street Basin in Birmingham with alfresco dining and fashionable people such as ourselves enjoying the evening sunshine. I am afraid Loughborough was a huge disappointment in this regard, the basin did not have any visiting boats, I suspect like us they all arrived, realised it was not all it could be and moved on. On the plus side Loughborough does have a nice park whose central feature is a Carillon which I am sure you are all aware is a bell tower which can be “played” by a "carillonneur" with some sort of keyboard rather than pulling on ropes and not a rather pretentious 1980’s band which was spelt Carillion.
It has 47 bells and the tower was constructed as a WWI memorial. The prime reason I suspect is that one of the big companies in Loughborough at the time was a foundry which made bells so not only a memorial but also an advertisement for the local product. Of course we arrived on the wrong day for a performance which only happens on Thursdays and Sundays.
One nice feature of this trip is the contrast between the different canals. We started on the Oxford Canal which had very few locks as the area was flat. We then joined the Grand Union which was the motorway of its time, there are two parallel locks so twice as many boats can pass through but still only wide enough for narrow boats. Pictured opposite.
We then joined the Trent and Mersey Canal whose locks are twice as wide and deeper, if there are two narrow boats wanting to go up or down they can both fit in the lock. The scenery is more industrial and the canal less picturesque.
Today we spent the day cruising the River Soar which is very peaceful, plenty of trees and as the river has been here for thousands of years the villages are built next to it. View at the top of the page. We were also passed by a number of rowing teams, fortunately they did not seem to mind us getting in the way.
The locks are still double width and if you open the paddles too quickly holding the boat still can be quite exciting as you can see Gill hanging on in the picture.
The locks are there to allow boats to pass the weirs some of which are quite impressive.
Tomorrow we move further south, possibly stopping in Leicester if we can find somewhere nice to moor in the centre.