Our time was up so we left our beautiful mooring at Shardlow to cruise through open countryside as far as Swarkstone where we moored above the lock. Here we could see the other end of the Derby Canal which is in water and has several boats permanently moored along it. After having a snack aboard it was such a lovely afternoon we decided to rub down and touch up some of the paintwork. This was made easy as there was a tarmac road running alongside to the BW yard beyond, so one side of Oakfield looks ok now, from a distance! On Tuesday we had a walk down into Swarkstone past the Church (which was locked) and the impressive two-towered Pavilion which is all that remains of the Harpur’s Tudor Mansion demolished pre 1750. It is now one of a string of Landmark Trust properties that have become unusual holiday lets. We arrived at the River Trent which is spanned by a twelfth century stone bridge, with a long Causeway zig-zagging it’s way across the grassy floodplain.
The Crew and Harpur Arms where we had a snack can just be seen peeping over the end of the bridge. I liked the rounded buttresses between the archways.
The road across the causeway was extremely busy with traffic and there was no room for a footpath along it. So, to photograph two of the many different archways I walked down a lane and was able see them way across a field.
We found this lovely footpath through the cornfields back to the canal, the black dot is actually Bottle ahead of me. We had to watch out for trains as we went over the level crossing half way.
On Wednesday we were near enough to run our hose to the water tap so we topped up with water. Just as we were about to leave fellow bloggers Karen and Ian on nb Serenity pulled in for a chat. They follow our blog and thought they might see us, although we have not had a strong enough signal for posting anything for a while. It was lovely to see you two again. Their recent cruise was full of surprises and beautiful images and we can recommend that you take a look.
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