Sunday 15th July / Monday 16th July

Sunday 15th July

We left Peterborough mooring at 9am, filled with water and made our way to the Stanground Lock. We were booked to go through at 11.15am but the lock keeper said that the boat coming up had reported engine trouble so we could go through early - about 10.45am. We stopped at Whittlesey to buy a paper and to have lunch. Setting off again there was Ashline Lock to fill and then empty. I needed the expensive (£5) key to get into the compound but you could easily climb over the fence. I’ll be interested to see how many times I need to use it. The Nene / Ouse Navigation link belongs to the Middle Level Commissioners who have chosen to use different padlocks etc than the Environment Agency who control the other waterways in these parts.

There is not a lot to see here so anything and everything is worth a photograph. Ever wondered where your oven chips were manufactured? Wonder no more!

March Rotary Club have erected a sign to say that you are passing Greenwich Meridian which is interesting.

There are also Pill boxes which were built for defence during the 2nd World War.

We decided to call into the only Boat Yard on the link to fill with diesel. When we arrived it had closed for the day but you can see from our moorings that we will be first in line tomorrow morning!

Monday 16th July 2018

Off we set again on Monday morning but certainly didn’t take the road leading here. Well, it wasn’t Friday.

The Fenlands are very flat and the line of pylons could be seen spreading into the distance.

Some of the bridges on this section had very low headroom and here you can see the problem at Bridge 35.

Due to the camber of the road above the headlight didn’t make it!!!! We had to reverse out and are now trying to repair it. Luckily we don’t have any tunnels for over a week so hopefully we will have sorted the problem by then.

This house had originally been a mill. The shape is a bit of a giveaway.

Some people do have unusual things in their gardens.

We have arrived at Salter’s Lode Lock and as this is going to be quite an interesting experience I will detail it in the next Blog.