Thorne to Strawberry Island Boat Club

Sat 30 April    the river is deep and the river is wide, Allelujah!
Out of the Blue, from Strawberry Island Boat Club, Doncaster, had moored next to us, and Derek told us to talk to the harbourmaster, John Foster, to use his place if we wished.
Today began sunny and breezy, so after emptying a couple of loo holding tanks, off we set.

looking back at the moorings and the CRT services at Thorne

Thorne Lock

 Liana operating a typical lock control panel. She found them all straight forward.

we met a friendly CRT man at this swing bridge

Staniland Marina, Thorne

Sun warm, air cold!

It was good not to need so much bad weather gear

There are only Thorne Town Lock and Bramwith Lock on the Keadby Stainforth Canal, but the swing bridges kept us busy! Bank holiday meant that seven boats passed us.

Thorne Cruising Club

wide beam boats are popular here

nature finds a way, if it gets a chance!

Bramwith Bridge services

What a lovely day, cool, windy but sunny. Depth and width were great, and being a navigation means no high banks, so we enjoyed the lovely views across the countryside.

avoiding boats at Bramwith Lock

Josie and 'Im joined us through Bramwith Lock. She entered the lock before a boat came out and passed in front of us to collect crew - a bit different!

Josie and 'Im

we last saw Bussard on the Chesterfield Canal

dark skies as Josie and 'Im turned North onto the Junction Canal

Our companion soon turned northwards onto the junction canal, passing over the Doin Aqueduct, with its huge raised guillotine gates.

Looking back: Right to Thorne, straight on North through the guillotine gates

Liana had a great feeling of power as she operated the large lift bridge at Barnby Dun. Just as Annie passed through, two boats appeared, so Liana waited a couple of minutes for them. Everyone was grateful, and the cars were not impolite, thankfully! It must be the largest cantilever bridge that Liana has ever operated.

traffic flowing again on this busy road

The weather was closing in fast, so we hastened through the last lock.

Annie looks tiny in a lock made for barges displacing hundreds of tons

the extra centre gates seemed to be unused here, as far as we could see, so we had the whole lock to fill

this must have been in the water a while!

leaving the last lock of the day

Liana securing Annie

The run into Doncaster promised rain, but we reached Strawberry Island dry, to be greeted by Ken and introduced to harbourmaster John Foster and Bar staff, who sorted out mooring and fob key very efficiently. We couldn't have been made more welcome by the members in the bar, too: several RWBC ex-members including Peter and Jackie (Firmani) and the Bartons sent love to all at RWBC. As we need to leave Annie for a while here, that was great. Liana got a lift from a member all the way to Clayworth to retrieve the car, too. How nice!