Yesterday morning, we left Kegworth Deep Lock, and it immediately started raining. It carried on raining until Loughborough. So only one photo, looking back at this impressive waterside house. Which is a shame, because there are some really beautiful wide stretches of the River Soar north of Loughborough. We stopped in Loughborough for shopping and a sneaky pizza lunch.
Loughborough is where we both got our degrees, and it always brings back memories when we come back by canal.
The weather started to clear as we left Loughborough, heading south towards Leicester. This is again a beautiful stretch of rural river. The sun really came out as we reached Mountsorrel, passing under this impressive brick bridge. It was clearly built in 1860, but we haven’t been able to find anything else about it. The lock in Mountsorrel is right next to a pub. Now the rain had stopped, so we had an audience of beer drinkers.
We moored for the night just short of Junction Lock. Confusingly, this part of the Soar Navigation is actually the the River Wreake.
The goal for today was to get through Leicester. But first there was more glorious River Soar.
If you have to go through Leicester, by water has to be the best way. It’s not quick, but it’s far more attractive than the other ways. And you get to go past the UK National Space Centre, yes that building that looks like an alien pod has landed.
The middle of Leicester is obviously much more built-up, with lots of new waterside developments, and the occasional random waterside sculpture.
Leaving the centre of Leicester, we leave river navigations and return to a true canal. Before we could, we had to wait for some divers to finish removing a mattress from around the prop of a CRT work boat. Earlier in the day I had crowed about the fact that nothing like that had happened to us. That was going to come back to bite me.
But we first had to deal with five minutes of absolutely torrential rain. At least Heather had access to an umbrella. Pippa, Sam and me got completely drenched whilst we got through the last couple of locks of the day.
And then I had the fun job of removing the collection of discarded clothing that was tightly wrapped around Heron’s prop.