With our moorings paid for January and our tickets to the King’s Boaters Post-Christmas Do purchased we went off in search of some Odorlos.
The river looked just a touch higher than yesterday morning as we approached Trent Bridge. The nearest Environment Agency reading up stream to us is at Farndon which is up stream of the huge Averham weir which takes part of the Trent northwards and around Newark. At midnight last night the level there got to 1.44m and is now gradually dropping. Rob the marina supervisor has been stuck with his boat on the Fossdyke Canal (downstream) since before Christmas. The boom over Cromwell Weir broke in the high winds and the navigation between Cromwell and Newark has been closed ever since. C&RT were hoping to make a temporary repair to the boom next week, then people like Rob would be allowed to make the passage safely up to Newark. But with the current river levels Rob is not so keen on moving back to his home mooring here. I’d also be surprised if C&RT manage to make the repair with the current high water. When we came up the tidal Trent in September there was 1 foot of fresh coming over the weir, Rob says there is currently 9 feet!
Nearly there
We walked past Town Lock which today was on red. The big work boat with it’s crane was in the lock. Nothing much seemed to be happening, but we did notice that the covers were now over the rams that open the lock gates. The walkway is still missing on the top gates, so we suspect it will remain closed to pedestrians until they are back in place. The flood gates were doing a good job with the level a couple of feet higher above them.
Chatting with Rob earlier today we’d asked about what would happen if the levels rose so that we couldn’t get on and off Lillian in the marina. King’s marina was built in 2001 after the very high floods in 2000, fortunatly the levels were taken into account when the marina was built. Rob has been here when the dolphins (they hold the floating pontoons that we are moored to in place) had only 3 feet left above the water, but that is the highest he’s seen it.
Lots of white boats
At Newark Marina we walked in to have a look around the chandlery there. There was one old BW work tug on hard standing along with one narrowboat, the rest of the boats here are all cruisers. From small to big to gin palaces, they were all here, the gravel was noisy and the amount of white was quite dazzling despite the grey day.
The chandlery had quite a bit in stock, but no Odorlos. The nice chap will order some in for us. Odorlos is a holding tank (pooh tank) treatment that doesn’t contain formaldehyde which a lot of products do. It is meant to reduce the smells in your tank by natural means.
The Trent above Newark
Our walk back to Lillian took us into Devon Park and along the swollen River Devon and back along side the Queens Sconce. A grey but dry day wasn’t stopping the daffodils.
Daffodils pushing their way up to daylight
0 locks, 0 miles, 1.37m river level, 0 odorlos, 5 soggy puddley fields, 2 fat rivers, 1 scone, 1 Blyton Yard, 5/31, 2 bowls soup, 2 much tupperware!
NB Lillyanne 