Gone but not forgotten

Wednesday, 28 July 2010 16:55

However we are now two days further on!

So I have to catch up with ourselves -

We were woken very early (6.50am) by the tanker Humber Pride. I could feel it coming from a long way away as Epiphany reacted to the water movement it was creating. Fortunately the tanker was going very slowly as the lift bridge was ahead.

We still took our time setting off and, despite the forecast, the weather stayed dry for the whole day. Our first destination was Doncaster, as I had a prescription to pick up and we wanted to have a look at the city. We only had one lock to do: Long Sandhill Lock.

We passed Strawberry Island Boat Club and all it's moorings. There was a real mixture of boats - cruisers, dutch barges, narrowboats and everything in between!

Doncaster College and the Minster were soon ahead.

The Minster overlooks the "waterfront". This consists of permanent pontoon moorings and a very small section of 72H visitor moorings (the sign warns boaters they should be prepared to breast up, and if anyone uses one of the permit moorings' pontoons without BW permission, there will be a charge of £10 per night). We only just squeezed in across the corner.

The Minster dominated the skyline above the mooring pontoons

We left Epiphany after lunch and walked into the city centre. Apart from the Minster (dedicated to St George) there are a few old building remaining, but I was not overly impressed with the centre.

A couple of malls and an extensive market would perhaps satisfy the shopaholic but Ray and I ended up in M and S for a coffee and cake. John joined us after having his hair cut for £3 (beat that!). So now you will not recognise him .....

We  had a wander around Doncaster Minster. This, originally the Parish Church of St George, is built where a church has stood for over 8 centuries; it was granted Minster status as recently as 2004. The Medieval Church was destroyed by fire in 1853; it was rebuilt by the Victorian architect Gilbert Scott. Although it is undergoing extensive renovation, it was still worth a visit.

There are some glorious windows, a Cornish serpentine stone font, one of the largest pulpits I have ever seen and a tower of 169 feet. There are more photos of the Minster and Doncaster in our album - clickety click

Returning to Epiphany, we decided to move on to, Sprotbrough as the moorings there are much nicer and we had heard that there was a good pub there too! We went through Doncaster Town Lock with a very small cruiser. There are so many bridges across the River at Doncaster, it is hard to say which was which!

Sprotbrough Lock leads to a lovely section of the river and also a really nice mooring. We found room at the end opposite The Boat pub. We had a very good meal at The Boat and polished off a large jug of Pimms between the three of us!

What should be moored opposite us when we came out, but Humber Pride, due to leave and go down the lock at 5.30am the following morning. Hmm.... would we be rocked awake again?

South Yorkshire Navigations, Dun Navigation and River Don, Barnby Dun to Sprotbrough

2 hours 43 minutes, 8.21 miles, 3 locks