The Trent in flood.

Solace Day 3.

Today we had a short section of the canal that is in reality part of the Trent.   When we arrived at the lock "the yellow boards were up".  The river has three states, green is normal, yellow is proceed with caution and red river closed too dangerous.

We moored on the lock landing and were given some up to date information by a boater who had just come up the river.  When he moved we walked the boat back off the lock landing thinking we might be there a while and the lock landing is reserved for boats to only be there while they prepare the lock.

Knowing there had been heavy rain the night before I was wary, so I walked down to the point where the canal joined the main stream.  We decided to wait a while to see if the level rose or fell.  After a couple of hours it showed no signs of doing either, so we decided to set off.  All went well, with the flood water you couldn't see down to the bottom as you usually can and because of the flow our speed was far greater than usual.

The blip shows two boats leaving the downstream lock landing to start their run down the river.  The first extra shows the Trent looking up stream from the footbridge over the river.  The second extra shows the safety boom across the river above a weir.  The main flow of water goes over the weir the rest flows down the "canal".  You must not get near the boom, yes it will stop the boat from going over but the flow of water under the boat will probably roll it over.  The low spot is a gap to allow canoeist past the boom.