Wonderful trip to Water Meadows

Yesterday 29th – Wansford Lock to Water Meadows, River Nene 3 locks 8.5 miles

After a dreadful day, we decided we would travel further than we would have normally yesterday.  I used to say to the kids when they fell off their ponies “Get back on NOW, or you may never want to ride again”  So we did just that after a short walk in the morning, and continued north downstream.

At our first lock Wansford, another crew arrived just as we had set the lock to go down.  I told then what had happened the day before, and they couldn’t have done enough to boost my confidence.  They helped keep NP off the wall, and kept reasurring me that what had happened was unusual.  They were off up the Nene to a rally in Northampton.

It was a good hour before we reached the next lock, the very pretty Water Newton Lock.  Some lovely buildings around the lock..

The building in the background you can see is a mill.  This has been converted into three houses brilliantly.  The water is still going under it though, I suppose if they tried to block that up, then it could cause flooding.  You can also see, that by this time the weather was just beautiful.  A bit of wind, but nothing to cause us any problems.

We were low on water, and hoped to stop at Peterborough Boating Club to pick some up, but there wasn’t a soul around when we arrived, which did surprise me beings it was the Friday of a bank holiday…. oh well… next chance would be at Peterborough Yachting Club.

I said to Vic, we could make do without filling up for a day or so….. and started to look for a place to moor.  I really wanted to moor near Water Meadows, and we had a go at getting into the side near Milton Ferry Bridge, but it was too shallow…. glad it was too because we came upon a bywater that led straight into one of the huge lakes!

Here my backyard today pic for yesterday!

Absolutely wonderful….. another sand and gravel pit given back to nature.  However, the geese were ranting and raving on the little island to the left of us…. what a din, so we decided to move in the evening back up the bywater that lead off from the Nene to the lake and moor there for the evening. 

We were happy to have put a few miles and locks between us after our unfortunate day at Yarwell…. Feeling much better all ready