We continued towards the upper reaches of the Chesterfield Canal repeating the section we’d already done with Rab and Gail.  At the second of the locks there appeared to be a boat in the lock.  Clare went up to sort things out and found the working boat Python complete with a large number of volunteers.  She got some assistance with the lock, but it was more confusing than useful.  They waited on the lock bollards for us to pass, so perhaps we should be grateful for that.

The canal is very rural, and the banks do not lend themselves to casual mooring.  We passed through Drakeholes Tunnel again late morning.  I again spotted a bat flying inside it – it obviously doesn’t want to hang on until night to feed.

Lunch time came with no obvious mooring spot available.  Just as we were considering eating separately, we spotted a section of piling we could moor at.  I wasn’t entirely happy with it as there was a lot of shade.  When we reached the spot I saw another boat in a sunlit spot with the crew casting off, but they seemed to now be hanging on to let us pass.  Clare hopped on to the bank and explained that we were hanging back, hoping to take their spot.

In the afternoon we passed a family group that seemed to have picked up a hanger-on of their own.

There are no junctions and very few options to change direction so despite the implicit warning on a canal side sign, we continued towards our original destination.

We pressed on to the outskirts of Retford before stopping for the night.  It was a slightly odd mooring outside a pub.  There were electric hook-up points, but no indication as to how we might use them, and a water point that didn’t seem to work at all.  There were very few people in the pub garden, but there were some moorhen chicks being fed by a parent.

For some reason the locks this far have been double width, despite the bridges and tunnels not being the same width, perhaps they were intended to speed up barge and butty pairs.  We had discovered on an evening stroll that the locks from here on are single width – and felt foolish when I realised that the map on our galley wall clearly indicates that.

We continued towards the town this morning.  Clare hopped off to go to a low-cost supermarket (other supermarkets are available) just before the lock leaving me to work through while she shopped – much less hanging around.  I walked ahead for the next few locks in the pleasant sunshine.  It was easy to get the locks ready ahead of the boat as top speed on most of this canal is well below 3 mph.

We saw swallows behaving in an unusual way. They were swooping over the canal catching insects as usual, but there was something else going on. As we went by I noticed some noisy youngsters hanging on to branches just above the water. The parents were swooping in to feed them.

Sometimes we come across clumps of reeds that have formed floating islands. They often get pushed aside by the boat as we approach. We’d been warned by a passing cyclist that there was a lot of weed ahead. We thanked her for the information but weren’t quite sure what to do with it. One island managed to hang on to the back of the boat as we passed. Clare made several attempts to dislodge it with the boat hook as we travelled along. It wasn’t actually in the propellor, but it did make steering heavy.

While Clare was preparing the next lock, I had another go with the boat hook. I think it had got under the skeg and now its buoyancy was holding it firmly to the underside. By pushing down and away I managed to send it floating off behind us. The next section of canal had a noticeable flow. We reached a spot where three of these islands had joined up at a narrowing. They appeared to be a barricade – this must be what we had been warned about. I approached slowly and was pleased to see them move aside, two of them drifting further downstream, so the blockage won’t reform here.

We found a rare section of piling and decided to moor up for the night in a rural spot.  I checked in the engine bay as I had some minor concern about water in the bilges.  That was fine, but I was surprised to see that something that should be hanging on was not – the air filter and its cover had fallen off.  I left the board off the engine for a while to let things cool down before clambering in to pick up the fallen items.  They didn’t seem to have come to any harm, so I fitted them back in again.  There was a satisfying click as the lid went on, but I obviously need to keep an eye on it.