It was one of those days

Wednesday, 04 August 2010 19:55

Not a good day .....

Actually, it started to go bad last night. We were moored beside a house at Barnby Dun and there was a party there last night. Apart from the noise we were woken at least 4 times by things hitting the boat, presumably thrown over the fence from the garden. Once, John got up and found a cardboard box that had contained cans on the roof.

Barnby Dun moorings

Feeling pretty vulnerable and helpless, we decided to ignore it and try to sleep. This morning - a very wet one - we heard a crash and found two beer bottles beside the boat. One was broken and the side of the boat was damaged, with glass on the gunnels. It was time to call the police. A constable eventually came out, took some notes and then visited the house. As we did not actually witness anything, we can only surmise; anyway, the police are not able to do much but issue a warning and keep the complaint on file. We have an incident number, if we decide to claim on our insurance for the repainting.

After all this, we did not leave until 11.30 am and by this time the rain had stopped. We left, glad to see the back of Barnby Dun and looking forward to exploring a new navigation.

Bramwith Junction is where the Stainforth and Keadby Canal leaves off to the right; the New Junction Canal goes left.

Little did we know that we would encounter more problems! Bramwith Lock was straight forward. It has two chambers, but only the upper one is in use for most craft.

The Stainforth and Keadby Canal is straight and travels through fields with few places of habitation beside the canal. The monotony is broken by swing bridges and the occasional lift bridge.

Our next problem was the swing bridge at Thorne - it would not open. It took John a while to work out that he needed to shut the control box and start again as the pedestrian safety gates would not work. Perhaps a loose connection? The same thing had happened to the narrowboat in front of us.

At Moores Swing Bridge, I thought I would get off and do some work! Bad mistake, I could not shut the manual barriers which needed lifting into place. In a nasty wind we swapped places.

Arriving at Godnow Bridge, we discovered three narrowboats waiting for it to be repaired as it would not open. The safety gates were stuck shut, so no traffic could pass over it either. One narrowboat decided to call it a day and stay on the mooring but eventually an engineer arrived. By this time three GRP (glas-reinforced plastic) cruisers had also arrived.

We got going and made sure that we were first through the bridge as we were concerned about a mooring and it was getting rather late and near evening meal time.

The convoy behind us at Crowle Bridge

We gradually left the convoy behind and, by the time we arrived at Vazon Swing Bridge, we were through before they appeared. Sounding our horn, the man in the rail signal box activated the sliding rail bridge after the swing bridge and we were on our last leg to Keadby! More about this bridge another time - it is amazing!

So we finally arrived at Keadby nearly six hours after leaving Barnby Dun. Hungry and tired, we were relieved to find there were plenty of moorings and we have a satellite signal, so John can now watch the programme about Freddy Mercury!

P.S The sun shone for the last hour or so - something had to go right! I shall put up the positive side of the journey tomorrow - when I have recovered from our trip up the River Trent!

South Yorkshire Navigations: River Dun Navigation, Barnby Dun to Keadby, Stainforth and Keadby Canal

5 hours 47 minutes, 16.17 miles, 2 locks