Big Boats, Big Bridges, Aqueducts and Night timefor a hotel boat

Well a load of pictures for this post, as a hotel boat we do get around a bit. Not a sunset this time but it was actually a long exposure at night on the New junction Canal heading toward Doncaster. A lovely “new” canal. It was probably the last commercial canal dug, completed in 1905. One lock, with swing bridge in the middle, and a bucket load of lift bridges, so you cant hurry, oh one swing bridge as well, just for good measure.

The River Don Navigation is also lovely with little villages and big views.

At one of the lift bridges we met Freda Carless, built in 1964 she carried various cargoes under the ownership of Flixborough Shipping. See her entry on the National Historic Boat Register, sorry ships. Owned by a lovely couple who really do continuously cruise with her, quite a sight and they skipper her really well.

Then the wonderful aqueduct come weir, look at the sides of it, over the Don. Guillotines at each each end, so careful about losing your head as you cross (sorry about that). They guillotine gates are they so that if the river is in flood it flows over the aqueduct and stops it flooding the navigation.