Vic uses his favourite bit of Nene kit at Earls Barton

White Mills to Great Doddington, River Nene, 2.5 miles 3 locks

It was raining when I peeped through the curtains this morning, so I lay back and took another half hour horizontal and got totally spoilt with a cuppa from Vic.  The girls (K9s Lucy and Meg), also wanted a share of my laziness, so I spread a blanket out and they both leapt on the bed for cuddles and TLC!

But we pulled the pins after lunch from White Mills to wander down the Nene again to Great Doddington.  The nice thing about having ‘done The Nene’ before is that we have found moorings that we love and that we know we can get into.

But before that..

Our first DIY lock on the Nene is Earls Barton.. That wheel has to be turned over 60 times to lower the guillotine.. but look, Vic has something up his sleeve in his hand..

He is fixing it to the wheel..

Ah ha!  Now we have a handy handle to turn the wheel and open and close the guillotine!  A much easier way to do it!

Much of the Nene in this area passes through gravel workings of some sort or other, but the holes that are made are turned into vast lakes where there is an abundance of wildlife, some very close to the river as you see here near Earls Barton, a great expanse of water on the left..

The Environment Agency are certainly not generous with their lock landing pontoons!  No Problem only just manages to get her front one third on this one at Doddington..

Not easy to get this one smack on today. very little space to stop in and the wind as you can see was blowing me away from the side.. But on through this one and we arrived at our chosen mooring for this evening at Great Doddington..

Superb views on the far side up the hill is Great Doddington itself with it’s small shop for groceries.  Unfortunately the Post Office has very recently closed although I do believe the villagers fought hard to keep it open.  I think I read somewhere that there were 600 plus signatures to try to get it to stay open..

On this side of the river you can see once again we have a huge back garden, and further behind me is Summerleys Nature Reserve, another expanse of lakes.  I walked along the disused railway line with the girls this evening and the lakes are full of all sorts of wild fowl.  We are staying here for a couple of days, so it will be out with the binoculars tomorrow between the showers me thinks to see what is out there.

Oh and one of the locals asked if we had heard the cuckoo yet.. apparently the local one who comes every year is a few days late!