Friday 18th August; Peterborough Embankment to Elton visitor moorings
We woke at 7, and were ready to leave at 8. The fishermen at our stern had just returned, hoping for better luck this morning – they had caught nothing last night and went home, which explains why we heard nothing at all!
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| Looks lovely, doesn’t it? |
Peterborough has a fair number of swans, though nothing like as many as Worcester.
On another lovely sunny morning we started the long drag upstream, but strangely cruising seemed a lot easier than yesterday, at least as far as Orton lock. The control cabinet, which I had great difficult closing yesterday, had been left unlocked – it was quite clear that the latch was distorted so I had to leave it unlocked too. Orton lock seemed very deep – only 4.1” according to Waterway Routes, so maybe it just felt that way as it was our first ‘uphill’ on the Nene. There were enormous weir control gates next to it, and canoe slalom poles dangling above the weir stream below.
We have seen few boats on the move on this trip, but the ‘rules’ still seem to apply as on the canals – when you do meet someone it’s somewhere awkward! On our way downstream, we had trouble seeing where the channel went just here -
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| Looking back at the bend |
and of course what should we see but the bow of a narrowboat as we approached from downstream. We held right back, as downstream boats have priority – it is harder to control a boat when the flow is pushing you onward – and lucky we did, as he was towing another! Alwalton moorings and lock were deserted, a far cry from the other afternoon!
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| Approaching Water Newton |
By the time we had come up Water Newton lock, we had just about sorted our system – Dave positioned the stern so I could climb up the ladder, he threw me the centre line which I secured temporarily, then passed me my grabber (aka litter picker) and windlass. With the grabber, I retrieved the bow rope from where I had placed it on top of the cratch and secured that, before returning the centre line to Dave’s control and lowering the guillotine. Then, tentatively at first, raised the same side paddle at the top. The time it took to fill depended on the depth of the lock and the fierceness of the flow. Eventually I could open the top gate and let him out, and he then had to wait while I closed up at the top and went back to raise that blessed guillotine, as you are supposed to.
We had noticed some pylon works when we were going downstream. Today there were people around, and a long length of cable which was either being taken down or put up – whichever, one end was at ground level. I am always impressed by the inventiveness of the engineers who devised the system in the first place and the skill of those dealing with all the complexities of construction and maintenance.
Would we find space to have a lunch stop at Wansford? We would! It’s not a steaming day of course, that must be why. It was too early for lunch, so we went up to the station to have a look round. Lots of interesting things to see. Opposite the platform were Royal Mail coaches, complete with the catching net to collect the mailbags, which were hung by the line so the trains didn't have to stop.
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| First class only! Only available when the train was in a station I would have thought. |
We chatted to an engineer about the unusual coaches on display. When the restoration of the Nene Valley railway was starting, it was realised that they could use continental rolling stock, which was much cheaper to buy than British at the time, to get things going.
We were surprised to discover that part of Octopussy, which is set in India, was filmed in 1982 on the Nene Valley railway. And we stood at the controls of the very locomotive in the film.
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| A rather poor photograph of a rather faded printout |
Roger Moore was not the only Bond to have graced the NVR – Pierce Brosnan did too, in Goldeneye (1995). Clips from the films are easily found on YouTube, but you’ll have to search for them yourself – I’m posting this nearly 2 weeks after the event and have a lot to catch up on! On we went. Some way below Yarwell lock there are some expensive-looking newish riverside properties. We thought they looked a bit too clean and clinical for our tastes, what little we could see of them – we only caught glimpses through the curtain of weeping willows.
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| Why are they blocking their own view of the river, I wonder? |
Maybe the answer has something to do with the large mobile home and camping park clearly visible the other side of the bend before Yarwell lock! If the river didn’t swing round in that pesky way I wonder if there would be quite so much foliage! Later in the afternoon we found plenty of space at the Elton mooring, where there is room for at least 3 narrowboats, which we hadn’t realised when we were going downstream. We relaxed for a bit, and while Dave took Meg off for a walk I prepped some chilli beans for tea.
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| Lovely view from the side hatch |
It was still too early to eat, so we strolled up to the village and had a pint in the Crown (Chaos Engine, a local beer, and very nice it was too). We sat outside with Meg, chatting politics with a local (maybe he is always be on the lookout for strangers’ ears to bend, I couldn’t possibly comment – his family disappeared inside!). Fortunately our views on Brexit and the current crop of politicians were broadly similar so we spent a lot of time nodding and smiling as we drank before we made our excuses and came back to eat.
The forecast is for heavy rain tonight. We were a bit concerned about what the Nene would do, so I posted a question on the Friends of the River Nene Facebook page – the answers were reassuring, and there were no strong stream warnings popping up on email or text, so with a bit of slack in our ropes just in case we went to bed.
17 miles, 6 locks, 7½ hours cruising, several kingfishers
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