Nene or Nen?

Saturday 12^th August; Northampton to White Mills lock

It was surprisingly quiet last night for a mooring in a built-up area, and with no smells either from the Carlsberg brewery not far away.  We started down the final lock on the canal at 9.30.  It’s a very awkward lock – in common with the rest of the flight, there are no footboards on the gates, so you have to shuffle across the top holding on to the railing – and it makes it too difficult for me to consider stepping across the gap when I close up. 

You can’t step across

The bottom lock has the added complication of no railings on the top gate, so I couldn't cross it to close the offside bottom gate.  Dave had to drift the stern across to close tthat one.

Horrible top gate

The next thing was to get an EA licence.  We cruised down to Northampton marina and moored on the lengthy service pontoon.  I left Dave topping up the water, and went to the office.  Michelle had run out of licences!  So she printed out a rough equivalent and gave instructions on what to do if we got a warning notice from an EA person.  She also sold me an Abloy key (essential for operating the guillotine gates on most of the locks) and a pump-out token.  Facilities are few and far between on the Nene and you need to be prepared!  Alfred arrived – the man who couldn’t get out of the bottom lock last night – who is on his way to a marina in March (on instructions from his daughter, who has taken over as ‘she who must be obeyed' from his wife, after whom we suspect his boat is named), but he is stopping here for a bit.

We set off on our Nene adventure – or rather the Nen, as we learned it should be called until about Thrapston, but I’ll just call it Nene I think.  The first river lock was easy enough, as we shared with a local boat, and basically it was just a normal double lock.  We stopped at the end of the lock mooring at Beckett’s Park – apparently that is ok, just not overnight – and I popped up to Morrison’s for the paper before we had lunch.  Then off we went.  We shared the next lock with The River Card, which had had a nasty experience in the previous lock.  We had heard violent revving of the engine, and some bangs – they hadn’t realised that the last boat going up had left the top paddles open, and the flows were very strong (which we discovered later on for ourselves).  They stopped at the pub shortly afterwards and we went on alone.

Abington was our first lock with a guillotine gate.  Someone was coming up, so we only had to raise the guillotine to leave the lock once we were down.  Guillotine gates must be left open even if you are going up, so they were well pleased.   You can see an open guillotine in the last but one picture on this blog, and there will be others to come.   After the lock is the barrage.

Abington Barrage

This is what had failed just as we hoped to start our Nene adventure on our last trip, and both Abington lock and the one below had been closed.  The barrage is a flood defence device.  I’m not sure how it works, but it has some serious cables.

The rain started shortly after that – not heavy, but enough to need waterproofs, although it got heavier after a while.  The locks take a lot of time to operate, so you don’t want to be caught without some rain defence!  Unless a boat is just coming out, you have to close the guillotine gate before you can start filling the lock to go down.  Most guillotine gates are electrically operated, but are still time-consuming.

Guillotine control panel.  The 2 minutes red light was illuminated.

You can’t just raise the guillotine gate – you press the button, then must wait for 2 minutes for the lock to empty before you can finish raising it and leave the lock. The control panel is locked inside a metal cabinet, which can only be opened using the Abloy key you have bought (£15).  It is clear that attempts have been made to get into some of the cabinets.

Attacked with a sharp implement

The Nene is nothing like the rivers we are most familiar with – the Severn, Warwickshire Avon and Thames.  At one point there was a view you could have seen on the canal – apart from the speed limit sign.

The locks are certainly different and very time-consuming.   Time was getting on and we were wondering where we could stop for the night – as with all rivers there are limited moorings, but they are particularly scarce on the Nene.  We could see from Waterway Routes that there was mooring outside White Mills marina, which was empty and we pulled in there.  It reminded us of one of the moorings on the Avon.

Dave took Meg out later and took this photo from the far side of the lock.  The swan family roosting on the bank nested close to our mooring and are happy to roost by the path taken by marina residents and their dogs.  They ignored us completely.

Dave came back with some blackberries.   

I forgot to mention yesterday that he finished installing the Wi-fi router and associated bits and pieces.  It’s so much easier than getting a signal via a phone tether, and seems more reliable.  It will probably work out more expensive though.

8¼ miles, 8 locks