Continued……..Day 8 (Monday 4th June 2007)

Cromwell Lock

There must be reasons for my change of mood this morning. I know I’m a bit bi-polar at the best of times but this is out of the usual mood swing range.

Lack of sleep? Maybe, I do like my 8 hours a night, sundown to sunup is six and a half hours at this time of year but its felt right, natural even, and if I’d been knackered I would have been stopping for sleeps in the day.

Diet? Don't know. I left home with three dehydrated meals from the camping shop and four packets of noodles from Asda and Jude had done me a sandwich box the same as i would take to work for the day. That box that I have usually stripped clean by lunch time lasted me from Monday afternoon, through Tuesday and into Wednesday morning. From then on there was a pub for lunch or a shop for a tin of beans or a can of soup or what ever i fancied. I had one of camping meals on the Thursday morning after the tug from the law, and finished bringing the rest home with me.

The one thing I did follow to the letter was instructions I had seen on a video of how much water you need to consume a day, doing moderate exercise, to keep properly hydrated. This stopped me ever getting hungry. No, I know I’m eating a fraction of what i usually consume, but I’ve never felt better on it. Almost like I’ve had a week de-toxing.

There are a couple of things that are different now. Until I left Nottingham I was in familiar territory. Ok, the river was new to me but I was never far from somewhere that I’d been drunk/ in love/ or in trouble before.
When I got buzzed by that bloke in the rib, when I was taking a photo of his missus on the boat, was were I'd moved out of my comfort zone.
And were I stopped for Sunday lunch, at the time I’d felt an alien, before realizing in hindsight that if I was there with the kids I’d tell em to keep away from the smelly old geezer off the boat.
The countryside is changing too, I've never spent anytime in Lincolnshire, its becoming flatter and trees are thinning out. Will I find trees to hang my hammock?

But there's something else. So far there has been two distinct parts to the trip. The first part from home to the top of the Navigation at Shardlow. The wilderness section. The Ray Mears surviving in the wild part, no boats, no shops, no people.

From Shardlow to here, every sort of vessel, every sort of pub, and every sort of person. Houses with gardens down to the river, scout huts on islands. Swallows and Amazons. The 'messing about on the river' section.
Before the end of the day i know I’ll be at the start of the part three. The start of the tidal reaches. There's demons here I have to face.

Coming into Newark-on-Trent, a boat yard\marina. Not the live aboard, narrow boat for sale, pub on Sunday type. But the Sunseeker ocean going lottery win sort. This brings the demon one step closer. Stop thinking river, start thinking sea.

Into the old town. This is old warehouse, now trendy wine bar territory. Castles and pub barges. Tourist trails and black and white timbered supermarkets.
I'm at the town lock well before working hours so have to portage round. It takes three trips and i still aint in the mood.
My usual brew on the down side and a breakfast of macaroni cheese I’m pleased to leave the town to it's Monday morning wake up.
One more lock and I'm out of it.

The traffic lights tell me the lock keeper is in attendance but he ain't playing.
"This is big lock isn’t for you, its for proper boats, but look over there were Oliver Cromwell played his banjo"

"If I put my live jacket on can i come through"

"No, but just round the corner is were Valid the Impeller had a weekend mooring for his long ship."

"Yeah, whatever. I'll carry it round then"

He finishes of by telling me I don't want to be going past Cromwell because its big and scary with massive tides and I’ll get swept away if the massive sand barges don't crush me first.

The wind has picked up some more, funnelling down the river. Constantly going from one side to the other to keep out the small waves that slap against the bow filling the boat with spray.
A mile down river, a pub. The landlady doesn’t seem impressed with my rigger boots on her carpet.
I ignore my own self imposed rule and go for a couple of double whiskey's to put some fight in me for the row ahead.

Back on the river I sing every song I know more than one line off to the beat of some ancient roman war ship. Starting with 'I don't like Mondays'
By mid afternoon Cromwell lock is in sight. For the first time since leaving home I’m exhausted. My backs aching and blisters have started to form on my hands. I've really made hard work of today. And am suffering a crisis of confidence as I go up to see the lock keeper.

So what is it about Cromwell Lock then? In 1975, 10 Soldiers from the Royal Engineers Parachute Squadron went over the weir and lost there lives while on night exercise here. That's what I've read in a book anyway, but I've been hearing about this place for days now. And in each telling the circumstances change.

That’s one of the things about travelling aint it. Of course you’re going to ask about what lies ahead. But who do you listen to? I mean to say, if I'm going to listen to everybody then I never did get to start the trip. I'd still be sat at the kitchen table thinking of what might have been.
And if you know every detail in advance then it wouldn't be the voyage of discovery that I was after would it?

It's like, in the very early stages, when I went and bought the first couple of OS maps, I'm studying the river and thinking "locks! Why have you got locks on a river, there for canals” and weirs, why can't we stick to waterfalls, there much nicer. And I'm reading about this and that place that were important because they were where you went to paddle across the ford, and go there now and its like, 10 foot deep or something, your thinking, blimey, they was hardy back in them days.
And before you got an engine, it was some kind of horse you would need to pull a barge against the sort of current we've got flowing past here just now.

So this is how it think it must have gone. You've jumped on your tree as it’s floated past. But the time you've got to Shardlow you've met a bloke you has lent you his axe and cut all the branches off.
Where you've been lighting a fire on your tree its started to make a hole in the middle that you can sit in.
There's a bloke in Nottingham who's made a paddle out of one of the branches that you threw away a Shardlow.

When you get to a waterfall you push the boat over and catch it on the down side.
Then you get to the seaside, swap the two Tamworth Sandyback Pigs you've bought from home for some herrings off this dodgy looking geezer in the funny helmet with the two cow horns sticking out and decided you better go home now.

You get to the first waterfall, unload the boat, carry your fish round and drag the boat up and around. Only trouble is when you load the boat it’s touching the bottom. You get some stones and put em on top of the waterfall thereby raising the water level. Because you used to wet the bed a lot your name is wee'er. So you call your new waterfall weir.

When you get to the place were people used to cross the river, you show a bloke called Bryan how to make a boat and charge for taking people across. You call this a ferry.

When you get back to Shardlow you pinch Bob Locks boat, fill it with stones and when it sinks you've got a dam that gives you enough water to get back to Tamworth.
But of course the fish has gone off by now, with the result that, to this day, there is no fresh fish shop in Tamworth, and the locals are paranoid about foreigners.

That brilliant Lady with the gin and tonic in Nottingham gave me a chart published by the Trent Boating Association. Let me quote something here
"Always seek local advice as a second opinion to your own.....and resolve and differences"
I mention this because this lock keeper says, no, it's not big tides just now, and yes, big sand barges do navigate from here onwards.

I know which lock keeper I want to listen to here, that one back at Newark, has took one look at me, decided I shouldn't go much further and has tried to talk me out of it.

This one has told me the facts, made me aware that from here on, you need tide tables, properly prepared vessel, and awareness of shipping movements. And ends with a stark "what are your intentions"
I'm plainly aware that he doesn’t think I’m ready for this, but it's my decision.
See, it's one of these situations, they don't have jurisdiction to stop anyone going off and killing themselves but they are going to fill you in on the dangers. As it should be.

Well, the only decision I'm fit to make at this moment, is that it’s not time to make a decision.
One major bonus at all these locks is that the have toilet and shower facilities. So opt for a shower, shave, etc before making up my mind.

Ok, this is how i see it. I've got OS maps, when I need charts. I don't have tide tables. I've lost the phone, and I’m tired.
That captain of the cruise ship in Nottingham said my boat trip might be do’ able as far as Torksey. The lock keeper kind of intimates that this would be more sensible. I could be there by morning, and could get the train home from there.

Well, I’ve come as far as the tidal bit.
A couple of miles down river. The voice in the head is giving it "So that's it, your giving up then" and the wind is acting like its being some kind of divine intervention. Look there’s even a windmill over there to make the point.

That’s it, I give in. Into the side climb the bank, that’s another thing the banks here are like, 20 foot high or something, and its not sand now, its silt. Mud. Messy.
Hammock up. Good night Monday.