Day 008 Leicester and beyond!

OK, finally moored up after a marathon day, (by choice though!)

Set off this morning at 9.30 towards Leicester. As we left, we noticed a few of the flood boards were running on amber alert.

A few other boats put our minds at rests and although the water was indeed running quite fast after a night of rain and Khayamanzi was working extremely hard, it was a fun ride though the weirs and locks. We even found a couple of boards just touching onto the red!

In around 8.5 hours cruising, we only met 4 moving boats! Unfortunately, due to the fact that we are doing the ring clockwise, (against the flow,) not only has my diesel taken a hammering but it meant that all the locks were against us due to them filling up with the flow!

Leicester itself was an interesting place to travel through. Absolutely no problems whatosever with everyone waving, smiling or calling out hello to us. The weather was good with only the occasional hail storm to contend with! This morning we made enquiries to BW regarding the safe pontoon moorings at Castle Gardens. "Oh we've moved them" the polite lady informed me. "Go through Birstall Lock and they're just there," she continued. We got to North Lock before getting worried having not seen them and so I phoned again. "You've gone too far" she told me, "stay there and whatever you do, don't go through the next lock. I'll find out exactly where they are." We reviewed the charts and discovered we had made very good progress so decided to push on and have a late evening instead of an early morning tomorrow and get as far through Leicester as possible. We worked through North Lock and there just in front of us were the secure pontoon moorings - at Castle Gardens! About an hour later she phoned and told me exactly where they were. Worrying when BW can loose a set of their own mooring pontoons!

Anyway, onwards past the National Space Centre....

....through interesting bridges.....

.....and the Leicester City Football Ground....

We finally moored after 8.5 hours of cruising, 17 miles and 16 locks, (all double and many padlocked!) just above Gees Lock, (no 36,) back on the Grand Union, (for the moment anyway,) not very quiet but fairly rural and safe and with an excellent satellite signal and even an HSDPA signal for the internet! Tomorrow, we can now relax a little, enjoy a fried breakfast and then head off towards more countryside and Foxton Locks