Squeezing into Shardlow

Dallow lock is the last of the narrow locks on the Trent & Mersey, the remainder between Burton and the Trent being "broad", of which Stenson Lock is the first.

The broad locks are very slow to fill and we were unlucky to find most of them against us, with boats coming up in many cases. Some boaters were being especially cautious in filling them too, which made for a slow run.


I wasn't too impressed by the first few miles today, which pass through rather uninspiring countryside and suffer from incessant road noise from the nearby trunk road. Things get better after Swarkestone, once the junction for the Derby Canal, which somehow avoided nationalisation in 1948 but was then closed by its owners despite a campaign to stop them.

Swarkestone Junction and the remains of the Derby Canal

At Shardlow lock we were asked to wait and share by a boater who was on her way to untie her boat. I expressed surprise at such a late start to the day - it was 7pm - but she was having to make a special trip after work to get the boat back to Sawley Marina having been prevented from doing so at the weekend due to the Trent being in flood.
After six years based on the Shroppie and travelling mainly on the midland canals I must admit I hadn't taken the potential non-availability of navigation on the rivers into account when making plans. I'm booked into a marina in Nottingham at the weekend for two weeks while I go on holiday, but if the river is now open and we have no more rain(!) things should be OK.
For such an obvious boating objective, Shardlow doesn't have many visitor moorings and we just managed to squeeze into the last available space in the village.  You can see why it was vacant:

Mooring at Shardlow

Not the most comfortable of moorings, but we have managed to jam a fender between boat and bank at each point of contact and the front door of the boat is 100 metres from the New Inn, whilst the back is a similar distance from the Malt Shovel!  We won't know which way to turn!