Where have we been?

Well, for the last week and a bit we have been cruising up the Old West River and the Great Ouse from our mooring at Lazy Otter Marina. The plan was to get to Bedford but the recent 3 day closure of St Neots lock meant we had no time to make the whole trip. However, we did spend time in St Ives, Huntingdon and St Neots itself. The weather was brilliant and the river was looking fantastic with few other boats on the water. So how did it all go?

The first leg of the journey was from Lazy Otter (pics1 & 2) along the Old West River to Hermitage Lock at Earith, where the river turns tidal for about 3 miles up to Brownshill Staunch lock.

 
The effects of the recent floods were still evident along the banks especially where the adjoining fields are flatter than elsewhere but things were starting to settle down nicely. While the Old West River has flood banks for much of the way, there are many great views to the wider fenland countryside. And this is a very rural area with only a few remote farm buildings and the odd road bridge and overhead cable. There were fewer herons, grebes and ducks than on the Great Ouse to the north but we we saw barn owls, geese and a couple of swimming mink (that is probably why we didn’t see much else!).

Hermitage lock is manned, so we didn’t have to leave Skylark. It was a little odd rising up from the Old West to the Great Ouse under a road bridge – more like a tunnel really. The lock keeper and his mate were very helpful and provided useful advise on the state of the river.

Brownshill Staunch lock followed and raised us up by about 2”. We were told that this could be as much as 4’ to 5’ in times of flood.

 

Our overnight stop was a remote GOBA mooring (Great Ouse Boating Association). If you use the Ouse or any of its tributaries, I suggest you join, they are doing a great job not only representing boaters in the fens but also providing some fabulous moorings in some idyllic spots.

St Ives was our next stop over. The town is like a small Ely, having a god range of small shops, pubs and attractions. Two of its highlights - Clive Sinclair invented the pocket calculator in the converted mill building by the river and Cromwell lived in the town for a while. The place is well worth a visit – its peaceful. By the way, I think the Chapel on the bridge is quite a feature. It was also used as a toll house and is now open to the public.

 
In its day, Huntingdon was an important town on the main road to the north so it developed a thriving high street with coaching inns, shops and many market traders. Much of the historic core has been blasted away by developers and replaced by non-descript shops, building societies, charity shops and cafes. It’s such a shame that this has become a feature of most of our historic towns nowadays. If only the planners, traffic engineers and developers could have predicted what a mess they were creating in their new vision for the future! And don’t get me on the subject of traffic management – I’m sure every county council could afford to build 100 new schools if they just removed half their traffic lights and turned off most of their street lights – and what a more pleasant place we would have too. Would we see more cars banging into each other or pedestrians blindly walking in front of lorries? I think not. Rant over!

Our mooring on the outward journey was next to a quiet riverside park and on our way back we moored opposite the converted mill buildings next to the old stone bridge. What a nice spot. The massive A1 road bridge over the Ouse is a matter of 100m away, another example, in my opinion, of how to ruin a perfectly good piece of landscape.

The mill really did look this good in the evening sun!

Godmanchester is just a short hop up the river and is very attractive both on foot and on boat. Try to avoid the rush hour because like so many other towns, it briefly turns into a smelly linear car park. It seems to be beyond the wit of mankind to sort this out. What ever happened to flexible working hours, car sharing, public transport, bikes and walking?

Back to the boat. The Ouse is a lovely river. It meanders through meadows of buttercups, native hedges and woodland, riverside churches and very posh houses with private moorings and very large gardens. I have not been on this part of the river at the height of the season (or during the winter for that matter) so have only seen it at its best. I can imagine, during dry summer weekends, bank holidays and the school holidays, the place must be teeming with the ubiquitous motor cruiser. While we quietly chugged upstream, we could see them behind the trees lying in wait, like gangs of white youths, complete with powerful engines and oodles of stainless steel bling; their freshly mown marinas with shops, restaurants, petrol, water, chandlers, etc etc. We were pleased that only a few owners had decided to join us. I dread to think what it would be like if they all decided to come out together!

St Neots is a pleasure to stay at for a couple of nights. We found a spot next to the Priory Centre where the guide advertised free mooring and public drinking water. It worked out well apart from the water. Apparently, the town council and EA could not agree who should pay the water bill so the supply was cut off – you can actually see the end of the pipe half way up the building where someone took a hack saw to it. I wonder if anyone considered the economic benefits of encouraging boaters into the town? Anyway, we found a private marina owner who agreed we could fill up for a small donation. What a nice chap!

We spent a very pleasant afternoon watching the local AmDrams put on Godspell. What a great bunch they are! The girl who sang ‘Day by day’ could be a star of the future. The company had fantastic enthusiasm, great talent and bucket loads of determination. It’s a pity the residents of St Neots don’t support them more – I know from personal experience that playing a Saturday matinee to 28 people is hard work – but they did it with panache. Well done guys!

While the town centre looks much like any other market town (don’t get me on that subject again), the river has a special character all of its own. The river is wide and slow flowing and youngsters were cooling off in the water, the local swimming club were wild swimming, families were strolling along the riverside paths, the boat club were rowing, etc. etc. Very attractive.

 
EA had notified us that the lock would be closed at 8.00 Monday evening for 3 days (well, we asked an EA contractor actually but it amounted to the same thing), so it was out of the question to go up to Bedford in the time we had left. So, we turned around and went back. For a while we shared locks with a St Johns Ambulance trip boat, a wide beam, taking disabled groups for river trips 4 to 5 times a week during the summer. You could see and hear that everyone on board was enjoying themselves. What a great bunch of blokes those SJ men are.

Arriving at Lazy Otter on Tuesday, we decided to head up to Ely for a couple of days. This also meant we could get Mick and Gena to fix a few more snagging items - the power lead to the shower pump had come adrift and the 12v fridge had packed up. These occupied us and them for a few interesting hours and, on Thursday we went home.

By the way, while we were mooring up in Ely, NB Jubilant pulled up alongside and Marion introduced herself and hubby Jerry. They are friends of Sharon, who I used to work with, and we had a chat while Jerry kept Jubilant nicely positioned mid river. I was pleased to meet them and hear that they had read my blog. And no, Jerry, I have not worked out my internet connection yet – that’s why I haven’t updated my blog until now. I’ll report further on this and the fun I’ve had getting a signal for the new portable tv. Anyway, nice to meet you both, I hope we meet up again.

I’ll post this now, even though I keep remembering further highlights of this trip. I’ll add them later.
For the time being, I’ll close with a fine sunset shot over the Cambridgeshire countryside. This was just after we saw another barn owl. If you look carefully you may just be able to see it flying off into the distance, then again, I may have lost that detail thanks to my ancient digital camera. Maybe I should add a new camera to my list of things to buy.

Edit1: What I don't understand is why many of the pictures I put on this blog appear out of focus but if I click on them, not only do they come up larger but they are then in focus - very odd. If you have the answer, please let me know.

Edit 2: I've worked it out, a couple of weeks ago I uploaded a windows package called Windows Live (or something similar) that you can type your blog into with photos and then apply it to Blogger. The type works well but the photo quality is rubbish. So, I have changed the photos using Blogger. Much better, even with my old camera. So, Windows Live gets the push.

Edit 3: While we were away, we heard on the radio that the Government has reversed its decision to charge VAT on pasties. Life doesn't get any better than this!

BFN