Our mooring at Ferry Meadows last night
Today has been a day of hold ups and hindrances. We set off at 8.15 thinking that we would be moored up by lunchtime, huh fat chance. The first lock we reached was being used by a couple that had only had their boat 3 months and this was their first experience at locking. They slowed us down a bit but not as bad as the next hold up.
It was the Environmental Agencies fishery research team doing a fish survey on a 200 yard stretch of river. They had 4 nets stretched out across the river, 1 at each end of the section of river and 2 that they dragged down the river to catch what ever was in this stretch of water. Needless to say we had to hove too until they had finished which took about an hour. I went and had a look to see what they had caught as each net was pulled in and it was very disappointing. The first net had a Pike of about 7 - 8 lb, a Tench of about 2lb and a Perch of less than 1/2lb and about 30 sprats mainly roach. The second net was even worse with only 30 - 40 sprats. Not exactly encouraging for the fisherman. Once underway again we encountered a never ending line of fisherman who I felt like telling that they were wasting their time after what we had just seen. We did see one guy land a reasonable sized Carp but that was all.
At Yarwell lock we planned to fill the water tanks as there is a water point above the lock. This was where hold up No3 arose. We were just about to exit the lock when 2 narrowboats arrived from the opposite direction and they went straight onto the water point, damn! We then had to wait in the lock for nearly 30 minutes until they had finished. This time wasn't lost as we had our lunch while waiting. After some discussion it was decided to swap over with a 1 out, 1 in manoeuvre which was the simplest way of doing things as there is not much space between the lock, weir and water point.
Wansford Station on the Nene Valley railway now has a new mooring
(for your info Sue it is now open)
Beautiful Water Eaton Lock cottage
We finally reached our overnight mooring 2 hours later than expected but it had been a busy sort of day.
1179 locks, 1728 miles, 41 Tunnels, 41 swing bridges and 19 lift bridges since Nov 2006
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