Tinsley Flight, End of the Line

We'd booked our passage up the Tinsley flight to Sheffield by calling the CRT yesterday. At 8am we set off from Eastwood to meet our first lockie Nigel at 09:30. There were a few miles and a couple of locks to get through before we got to the meeting point. The canal was wide until we passed the Exol factory where the large commercial barge docked and loaded. Beyond this point we got a definite impression of entering the road less travelled, with more weed, smaller locks and overgrown banks. The locks were all manual too, with leaky gates and stiff cranking mechanisms.

We were meant to meet Nigel at Holmes lock, the start of the Tinsley Flight, but Will had messaged to warn him that it would be closer to 09:50 and it didn't seem to be a problem.

Nigel had gone ahead, unlocked and opened sluices and gates for us so we could drive straight into each of the locks. Sometimes he'd be there to fill the lock and open the top gates for us and other times we were left to our own devices with instructions to leave the sluices closed and top gates open.

We took it in turns to drive and to work the locks. It was very hot and we were glad of the help of the CRT workers, David taking over from Nigel half way through. Ourselves, the dogs and Abby who was locked inside were tired by the time we reached Lock 1, having climbed over 200ft and passed through 16 locks. David waved us farewell with a sense of achievement and we chugged our way towards the city centre.

Unlike Doncaster, Sheffield embraces the canal. The towpath is well maintained, there are small parks and we were treated to some brilliant bankside murals. Old brick factories, mostly left to ruin, mingled with modern corrugated metal industrial buildings.

Arriving at Victoria Quays it wasn't obvious which were visitor moorings and which were permanent spots. A friendly boater soon called over from the opposite bank with the info we needed. Despite being hot and tired we descided it would be a lot easier to fill with water before turning round and mooring. This involved going through a very stiff pedestrian swing bridge.

The Inland Waterways Association runs a fun scheme called the Silver Propeller, shining a light on the lesser used canals and rivers around the UK. A list of spots has been compiled and if you visit and submit photos of you and your boat at 20 of these locations you earn yourself a little silver propeller to put on your boat. We won't plan our travels based on this but as continuous cruisers planning on exploring as much of the UK as we can (albeit at a very relaxed pace) we think it'll add a bit of interest to our journeying. Thus when our tank was full we chugged passed the permanent berths and under an arches of the Straddle Warehouse spanning the basin at the start and end of the Sheffield line.

Bow and stern lines tied, Will went straight for a cooling pint at Dorothy Pax, a nearby pub with shaded outdoor tables and Vicky ran a shallow cool bath for herself then the dogs.Read more