Our first FOTRN mooring

Sunday 13^th August; White Mills lock to Ditchford Friends of the River Nene mooring

White Mills is quite a good place to moor– the edge is a bit rough, and we had had a bit of trouble yesterday evening finding somewhere safe for Meg to get on and off, but it was fine tin the end.  It’s marked on Waterway Routes as a ‘pay’ mooring, but there is no sign and no-one came to ask for money.  We left at about 9 after some early rain, which returned now and then throughout the morning.  No sooner were we down White Mills lock than we saw the first of many paddle-boards and kayaks.  They were the marshals from the local club (probably) which organises a bi-monthly Aquapaddle, a timed 5k paddle on or in your floating object of choice.

First paddlers

So until we were clear of them, we were perforce cruising very slowly and carefully - there were loads, of (very) variable proficiency. As we approached the next lock, Earls Barton, the leaders - two very competitive men on boards  – had turned and were on their way back, and an equally determined woman in a kayak was close behind.

Locks appeared across the fields now at fairly frequent intervals, their guillotine frames making them clearly visible across the flood plain.  There seems to be a swan family claiming each reach as their territory.

So far the guillotines have all been operated electrically, so although they take a tedious amount of time to raise and lower, they are not difficult – although you do get a bit of an aching thumb.  I had to keep changing hands.  Some of the gates have clearly been bashed around rather a lot – I don’t imagine it was a cruiser causing damage like this.  But the guillotines all seem very robust.

Dents clearly visible when the gate is raised

We are still finding these locks a novelty, although they do take a long time to operate.  The guillotines are wound up or down on a giant bike-chain.

Some of the lower lock landings especially (known as pens hereabouts) are sized for cruisers, so it is fortunate Dave only needs to put the back in to pick me up.

At Wollaston lock, someone had left their windlass on the guillotine control box.  It was a ratchet one!  Someone is going to miss that.  I will post it on the FOTRN Facebook page when we stop.

£120 worth!

Then what a nice surprise, Upper Wellingborough lock was a proper lock – gates at top and bottom.  The notice on the gates suggest you can leave either set of gates open or closed, whatever you want, whereas the guillotines must always be raised before you leave.  This can be good, in that the lock is ready for you when you are going up – although you then have to raise the guillotine again once you are out of the top gates.  When you are going down, as we are at the moment, you have to close the guillotine before you can start to fill the lock to come down. 

We were just coming into Wellingborough when The River Card, with whom we shared a lock yesterday, hailed us – had we seen a windlass?  We could tell them exactly where it was, and off they went at some speed.  We moored on the embankment for lunch, then I went to the handy Tesco not far away for supplies.  While I was there the River Card returned, with their windlass, and the son/grandson (Dad and Grandad were on board too) was having a great time in the Splash Zone water play area,  No way would we be staying there, though – we are tied up opposite a noisy factory which, we were told, operates round the clock.  So we put the shopping away and off we went, stopping for the night at the Friends of the River Nene’s Ditchford mooring, about a mile out of town.

It’s lovely – a fairly good edge, and a flooded gravel pit to walk the dog round.  This one has little private areas all around it for camping, sailing, all sorts of water activities.  We saw several jet -skis parked under their covers.  This was the most interesting though – some kind of stilt-walking on water!

Very James Bond

It’s called flyboarding and Wikipedia says ‘A Flyboard rider stands on a board connected by a long hose to a watercraft. Water is forced under pressure to a pair of boots with jet nozzles underneath which provide thrust for the rider to fly up to 22 m (72 ft) in the air or to dive headlong through the water down as far as one is willing to go’. We watched for some time.

The wi-fi router Dave installed was working very well.  It was just a shame that I still couldn’t seem to get my photos from my new camera to the laptop.  I’ve tried using a USB-SD card reader (my laptop has no SD slot of its own), and downloading via the old camera (which has a lead, and which Dave fiddled with and got working again) but that didn’t work either.  Solution tomorrow.

6½ miles, 6 locks