River or Navigation?

Sunday, 22 August 2010 19:53

Both actually!

The River Trent continues until Cromwell Lock and then it becomes a "navigation". Or that is as I understand it!

We left Torksey at the unearthly hour of 5.58 am "precisely! It was flood tide and we crept out so as not to wake everyone! It is a good job John wakes up quickly - it takes a cup of tea, food, a cup of coffee and a shower to wake me up properly!

By 6.40-ish I was back in charge of the camera and by that time we were at Dunham. The Trent Valley has been called the powerhouse of England. The current working power stations produce over a quarter of England's electricity. Plentiful water for steam production and cooling and, until relatively recently, plenty of coal from the East Midlands coal mines. Most of the power stations have been built since the 1950s and many are now powered by gas.

The huge cooling towers are prominent on the sky line, as here at Cottam; further down the redundant High Marnham closed in 2003. They have a strange industrial beauty.

Cottam power station

About half the electricity is conveyed to London via the grid of overhead power lines, marching away across the countryside.

Power to the people at High Marnham

You remember I wrote about danger signs on the Trent ? - Here is the one for the sunken island at Normanton. We took a wide berth, as although we were travelling on the end of the "flood", the river was low because it was still neap tide.

A GRP cruiser heading straight for us could also spell danger! This one took a long time to veer away and in fact washed our cratch window and foredeck for us with his bow wave - how kind!

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So, passing Sutton on Trent and then Charlton on Trent, we came to the huge Cromwell Lock. John had rung ahead to tell the Lock Keeper to expect us but there were boats (cruisers and a narrowboat) coming down who got there first so we waited on the pontoon below. The weir is very impressive and I was not too happy with the weir rushing one side and the lock emptying on the other! I kept a close eye on the ropes and movement.

To be continued ........