Sunday Cruise

One sunny spring day in 2011 myself and a friend, and our kids went on a trip that I'd never make when I was growing up in Kiveton - a 2 hour cruise on a narrow boat called Seth Ellis on the Chestefield Canal. When I was a kid playing on the towpath the canal was a 6 inch deep swamp of mud and reeds in many places. Thanks to all the restoration work in the 1990s and 2000 and noughties it's a waterway fit for narrowbeam motor cruisers and narrowboats.

Das Boot

The trip ran from Kiveton Park to the locks just before Turnerwood, through a couple of locks, and then back. The picture below is of the boat in which we made our trip (their website is at Seth Ellis charter and canal trips. They're not the only ones that run such trips though, and the Kiveton/Anston stretch isn't the only place they're run (they run them from Retford and Shireoaks for example). Here's a photo when cruising along the canal between Kiveton Park station and Turnerwood:

Das Boot

... a few from the Thorpe Locks (Treble 22):

lock from Devils Bridge lock gates open lock gates open

.. and turning the boat around in the Thorpe Locks lagoon ready to head back to Kiveton:

Thorpe Locks lagoon

.. the kids can have a go to!

Thorpe Locks lagoon