It was up at 06.00 today for an early start navigating through Leicester, as recommended by our friends, and we anticipated an eight hour trip.
We set off with the mist rising from the canal and the sun just showing its face at 07.00 and had completed the first lock by 07.20. It was cold enough to bite at my finger tips so gloves were the order of the day. The mist was quite thick in places making it difficult to see the tight turns ahead of us, but all went well and we made steady progress.
It wasn't long before we met a couple of old gentlemen walkers who engaged us in conversation at one of the locks, discussing the condition of the canal through Leicester. They suggested that it would get dirtier as we went further on into Town, and oh boy, did it. At one lock called Lime Kiln, there was so much rubbish that we slowed down to a tick over, in order to reduce the chances of fouling the prop. Closing on the lock we passed under a bridge just before the landing area, and millions of bubbles started to rise from the bottom of the canal, and the stench was almost overpowering (Methane Gas). It was a good job we were not in a queue as we could have been taken ill. The lock itself leaked so badly that it took forever to fill (must report to British Waterways).
Away from that the rest of the journey was very pleasant and the canal seemed much cleaner.

Coming to the outskirts of Town we came to the Leicester City Football Club, and the lock at which others had been turned around, because of the stoppages. However it was not locked and we manoeuvred through making for Kings Lock, where we knew we would have to wait until the 2nd April.
Once we arrived we walked up to the lock to find it had been chained up by BW, but the notice on the board did say that it would be open on the 1st April, which would be great. So at best we only have one day to wait before heading toward Foxton Locks.

I do have more photographs, but the Internet signal is low giving a very slow download. So any pictures I have from today will be posted over the next few days.

There is one other boat waiting to pass, the crew are Peter and Philipa on NB Sentosa 11, and believe it or not they are heading for the Nene as well, small world hey.