Two Days in Nottingham

Tuesday 30th and Wednesday 31st July in Nottingham.
It was good to wake up to a bright morning in the centre of Nottingham, even if it didn't last.

Rain arrived shortly afterwards and was clearly set in for the day. We took a walk into the centre of town for the inevitable "few bits" but then returned to MM and battened down the hatches for the rest of the day.
In the "Lockside Tea Room" at Long Eaton, we had met a solo boating lady called Joan and had reassured her about the level of the Trent. She had been planning to go back down the River Soar through Leicester, but the Soar is still closed due to high water levels, so she too followed us into Nottingham and moored behind us. She very kindly invited us to tea on her lovely narrowboat "Early Byrd".
Wednesday morning dawned a tad brighter; the rain had stopped and Joan set off to go back to Beeston to await the re-opening of the River Soar (it is now the 2nd today and its still closed); we waved her off and R helped her through Town Lock. A fascinating and very spiritual lady - we wished her well on her travels.

We had already explored the centre of town when we were here three years ago so, we decided to walk on down the canal to the lock that goes out to the River Trent - partly to see how high the river was and how fast it was running.
Meadow Lane Lock connects the canal to the river opposite the Nottingam Forest football ground and we expect to go through this lock tomorrow and on to the Trent.

The river level was just touching the orange, which means that the level is up a bit and caution should be used. It is also running quite fast but, so long as it stays at this level, it should not be a problem.
As we walked along the river frontage, we passed flood marks cut into the wall beside the embankment. The flood levels were frightening!

The river maps we have indicate the course to steer along the river to avoid any shoals, although the river is sufficiently high that running aground is a very remote possibility. The maps also mark the number of kilometres from the centre of Nottingham and this pillar on the embankment, erected in 1873, appears to be the zero point.

We walked for over a mile along the riverside, known as the Victoria Embankment. It seems that there is a huge music festival here next weekend and all along the embankment were hundreds of food stalls and fairground rides all setting up in preparation for the weekend. At the end of the embankment we came upon the vast war memorial gate and gardens.

Behind the gardens was another large park covered in more preparations for Saturday's festival. It is clearly going to be very big!
To one side of the park was a very advanced Cycling Proficiency road network, complete with working traffic lights and every conceivable sort of junction and obstacle. A far cry from the few cones and chalk marks on the school playground of our youth!

Clearly this had to be the way back to MM!

Nottingham has an excellent tram service. It was certainly very quiet and smooth as compared with conventional buses.

We walked back past the very imposing railway station building.

The canal through the middle of Nottingham is officially called the Nottingham & Beeston Canal, as marked on the pedestrian bridge next to the huge "British Waterways" building, and MM is moored next to it. Sadly, the BW building appears to be unoccupied at present.

Our walk was about four miles, but we never found the Sheriff (except the one in 1873 on the milepost). Clearly he had got wind that Robin and Marion were back in town and had gone into hiding.
Two days: MM didn't move but 3.7 hours to charge the batteries.
Trip: 207 miles, 123 locks and 131.0 hours.