Patience Aweigh

Day 1: Oundle to Irthlingborough
Oundle has been a good place and we recommend it - and The Ship Inn nearby - to anyone seeking refuge on The Nene, though the Nene itself does come with the disadvantages of strong stream advice after heavy rain in the midlands, so boating is sometimes restricted.

So we bade farewell to Oundle Marina, our home for the last two years, with thanks to Mark and Jacqui, and headed on to the great canal network in our long journey west which started at The Lazy Otter at Stretham on the Ouse five years ago. It's a little later in the morning than we would have liked and there's a long day ahead but it's a lovely day and the sun shines on us as we pootle along visited by red kites and blue dragonflies.

The mid stretch of this trip is a bit short on waterway pubs, - with the exception of the Kings Head at Wadenhoe, normally packed by moored boaters yet today totally empty - so we've aimed to be self-sufficient in food just in case. Menus are covered in a previous blog.
Between us we have knees and an ankle that need nurturing so we must beware risky acrobatics (as if ...)
We pass Thrapston Bridge moorings where we have stayed previously, but there's no time to spare and few mooring options so the next stop is Irthlingborough - not our favourite town, but at 7.30 and after 8 hours of continuous cruising it's the perfect spot and as soon as John has checked the engine room I heat up the spaghetti bolognaise cooked the night before and we settle for the night.

Some long term financial arguments over the football stadium or at least who is responsible for the moorings here have resulted in some of the moorings being closed, but there's enough room for us and a couple of others.
At the end of the day we should be on track for reaching our destination of Welford by Saturday evening, though this depends on reaching some of the staircase locks in time. And we're not used to locks. How shall we cope?
Today: 16.5 miles, 10 locks, 8 hours

Oundle to Wadenhoe And Back

With warm weather expected followed by a cool change, we took Patience up river to Wadenhoe on Wednesday and back on Thursday. This gave her a breath of fresh air, a bit of leisurely exercise on a sparkling and clear river and a change of scene.
Wadenhoe is a charming and attractive village, preserved by a Trust, and our interest is focused on The King's Head and its garden which rolls down to the river, near the lock. So popular is it that we had to moor alongside another boat for a while, with river edges at a premium.

On arrival at Wadenhoe and tying ourselves to another narrow boat, we headed up the slope to the bar for our choice of beers.
In the afternoon, torn between going for an improving walk or relaxing in the shade down by the riverside, we opted for the latter, while swimmers and canoeists floated energetically to and fro.
In the evening we indulged in some great food at The King's Head.

Thursday dawned misty on the river ...

... but we headed off for our walk (a modified version of the walk at Walking World id=5874 bypassing Sudborough but including Wadenhoe) of 7 - 8 miles roughly following the Lyveden Way to Lyveden New Bield (National Trust) where we found more of interest than we had expected...

... including a very pleasant coffee shop, useful information centre, replanted orchard, moat, lake and entry to the never-completed Elizabethan house built for Sir Thomas Tresham.

Our walk in bright sunshine took us across fields and through woodland, with no traffic, hardly any other people, and a sense of surprise that we were so far from the non-stop frenzy of the A14.

With deteriorating weather expected on Friday we headed home to Oundle reinforced by a substantial lunch at The Kings Head, very satisfied with our little trip.

Back to Fotheringay

Bright and fine at 5am but overcast and very blustery by 8.
Newspapers from Elton Post Office then we decide to head back, to Fotheringay in the first instance.
Undecided in this temperamental weather my thoughts start drifting towards taking a few days in Scotland later in the week. While I'm fine reading interspersed with the odd stroll and a pint at the end of the day, John's boundless energy needs more active outlets and we consider heading back to Oundle sooner rather than later. The fact that the fridge is broken and our milk has gone off helps to urge us home ....
Nevertheless we love the mooring (but try to moor away from the bridge, where cars tend to parp as they approach the blind hump back).

We like the church and the castle mound, and we agree that The Falcon is our latest favourite pub,so we plan to stay for the evening barbecue (Sunday's speciality).
When the weather permits we investigate the Church of St Mary and All Saints, which is impressive, though much reduced in size since its finest days. It features a well designed history of the Dukes of York, for whom the castle was home (Richard the Third was born here).

The evening barbecue at the Falcon was a great success and very good value.

Hurrah for the Falcon!

Fotheringay to Elton

Up betimes. Wind and rain overnight with warnings of more to come over the weekend. In a sunny spell we make a dash to Elton, the next mooring place known to have a good pub nearby, and despite winds blowing us on to the shore at Warmington lock - which took three of us to push off and work through the lock, we moor at Elton unscathed. It's a rough mooring just up stream from the lock, and we use the gangplank, but the nettles have been cut so it's fine.
The Post Office / Shop is open, The Crown is open too, and with rather slow (at 0.5Mb you could hardly call it broadband) wi-fi it takes all the time of drinking a pint to download my daily newspaper. I was nearly forced to have a second pint!
Unfortunately there are no bar snacks on Saturday or Sunday evenings and with restaurant meals at £25 for 2 courses, £30 for three (compared to the Falcon at Fotheringay, £13.50 for 2) we opt to eat on board.
We note that the Black Horse on the main road is closed (permanently or refurbishment?).
At this point we have the choice of mooring up for the day, going on or going back. The weather is not helping, being increasingly blustery with showers. We nearly opt to walk across the fields to The Kings Head at Wadenhoe but then we discover there is a Loch Fyne restaurant just outside Elton so we choose that for our evening.
In the afternoon John tinkers endlessly with the frustratingly erratic TV (deciding it must be the wind in the trees affecting the signal), the gas fridge (no flame, no spark), the light in the loo (replaced) and some voltage things to do with the boat batteries (about which I know little). Fortunately he enjoys that sort of thing.
We had a good meal at Loch Fyne, 20 minutes walk from our mooring (into the village, up the hill and turn right and keep going just past Elton Hall).

From Oundle through Ashton to Fotheringay

I really needed to get away for a break so, knowing that "boating is the fastest way to slow down" and despite some ominous weather warnings, we headed off, through rain showers, to Oundle to start a trip down stream.
Up river they say there is weed, while downstream there are several good pubs and eating places plus tranquil water - so we head off in overcast conditions, mooring up for lunch at Ashton Lock whence a 15 minute walk takes us to the surprisingly quaint and quiet estate village of Ashton with its attractive pub The Chequered Skipper. The village was rebuilt by the Rothschild family; the Chequered Skipper is an attractive butterfly now extinct in England, though Elton was one of the last places in England where it could be found. A picture of the butterfly is on wikipedia .
We had a very good lunch at The Skipper and recommend it.
Back to the boat, through Cotterstock and Perio locks to Fotheringay where we moor directly below the church.

This is a spot well worth the £4 mooring fee. and that's not something you'll often hear from me!
Exploration leads to the Castle mound and a small memorial to Mary Queen of Scots as this is where she was executed.

This view is looking downstream, taken from the mound, which is all that remains of the castle, except for a stump of masonry (here at the bottom right) where Mary's execution is commemorated.

"In memory of Mary Stuart, Queen of Scots, beheaded in the Great Hall of Fotheringay Castle, 8th February 1586/7"

It is difficult to visualise the castle as it was but there are several pictures which attempt it, plus a model in the church.

More about Fotheringay Castle on wikipedia.
We eat at the award winning (and deservedly so) Falcon at Fotheringay. It has good bar snacks as well as a fine restaurant and a tap room, excellent service from charming young waitresses and bar staff and with wi-fi too it's just a fine place to whittle our lives away after a hard day's boating.

The spring pump out

Spring has arrived at last. So on the first really warm day for ages, and being the first of May, what better than to get aboard Patience and take her out for a brisk pump out.
Last season, best forgotten for the weather, left us without time for pumping out as part of our routine winterising - so today we arranged for one by the nice chap at Nene Valley Boats. I think actually he was a bit disappointed that we couldn't produce more - but with last year's holidays cut short and a general tendency by us to use local pubs' loos whenever we are customers, I suppose we just couldn't fill the tank.
So here we are, just one lock and a quarter hour from our mooring at Oundle marina, (where they are planning to have pump out facilities as part of their development) and we are using Nene Valley Boats' portable pumpout, towed by a fine red landrover.

 

and finally, for those who are curious engineers, here's the very pump itself.

Later, inspired perhaps by the nice man at Nene Valley Boats, John spent some time reassembling our toilet pump. As it once cracked in a deep frozen winter we now drain it thoroughly, but this time it took a little while to get the gasket in place to ensure effective pumping. Nevertheless, job done and a full complement of fresh water on board we are now ready to go places.
There may be time for some painting up, but the river awaits ....

Waterways World

We happily subscribe to Waterways World and love the Pull-Out Guides for the regions. This month (February 2013) we have more interest than usual because there are two articles on our boating area: one describes the "Cruise of a Lifetime" - 344 miles from Llangollen to the Little Ouse - and a guide to the Middle Levels.
The long cruise starts in Wales and makes its way across England to the river Nene (where we are now) describing the experience as "drifting timelessly through rural middle England, past quaint stone-built villages and historic watermills". Oundle (our mooring) is "the icing on the sumptuous Nene cake". So we look forward to the boating season with additional rose tinted glasses - but actually, it's true!
The Middle Levels are said to be: "remote adventurous cruising" and more than just a transit route between the Ouse and the Nene. Indeed this is what we found. It also describes the problems of weed clogging the prop, which we experienced in 2012, to our great frustration.
See our earlier blogs for example here for the Nene and here for the Middle Levels as we saw them.
Oh, and one other reason for enjoying the article on the  west to east trip across England - it ends with a lovely pic of Patience in front of Kings College Chapel, taken by David Coppendale when we navigated the Cam in 2011.
So here's another glimpse of that trip along The Backs of the colleges in Cambridge. One of the blog entries for that trip is here. We recommend the eastern region, Nene, Middle and Great Ouse!

Nene Floods 4

According to the Environment Agency monitoring station at Lilford (just upstream from Oundle Marina), the river reached its highest point on the evening of Sunday 25th November. These photos were taken on the morning of 26th November and show the water covering the mooring pontoons, the bank and the car park at the marina. Mark, the Marina Manager, and his colleagues had been working hard overnight to check that all the boats were safe and slackening mooring lines, where necessary, under very difficult conditions.  When I called in again on the afternoon of Friday 30th November, the water had receded to almost normal and again the marina people had been checking that boats weren't hung up on pontoons, etc as the level went down.  Their hard work is really appreciated.  Many thanks!

The Oundle Mill Restaurant at Upper Barnwell lock wasn't so fortunate. It was completely flooded out and we feel really sorry for the owners, who had recently put so much time and money into restoring it. This photo (also taken on the 26th) shows the mill isolated in the middle of the river, which can also be seen cascading over the lock gates.  The relief channel, which bypasses the Upper and Lower Barnwell locks, just couldn't take all the flow and had burst its banks where it flows under the old stone bridge on the road into town, as can be seen in the last photo.

Nene Floods 3

Many readers of this blog will be most interested in canals and narrow boats, but the rivers also need some explaining.
Coming as we do from East Anglia, Patience has spent her recent years on the Ouse and tributaries and now the Nene (via the Middle Level). These river systems are not just for leisure boating but are primarily for water control. That's why they are managed by the Environment Agency rather than British Waterways / Canal River Trust.

Car Park, Godmanchester

This pic was taken in my office gardens in 2009 but the scene is the same today - except that there are gangs of men wandering around looking lost. The reason? They're building flood defences in the gardens bordering the river, but the floods have over-run their site, so flood barrier building has come to a halt. Halted by floods ....

You can visualise the north-south Grand Union Canal west of Northampton on the left, the Ouse on the right and the Nene and Middle Levels in the centre connecting the two sides.

The Northampton Arm leaves the Grand Union Canal at Gayton Junction and joins the River Nene in the centre of Northampton.

The River Nene then takes a twisting and attractive rural route through Oundle where we are moored and Lilford, our nearest EA measuring station, to Peterborough's Stanground Lock where it divides, with the northern channel becoming tidal as it crosses the flat Fenlands on its way to the sea. For preference, most boaters avoid the difficult tidal stretch and enter the quiet and often narrow Middle Levels.

The Middle Levels are primarily a network of rivers, man-made drainage ditches and sluices intended to drain the low-lying area between Peterborough and Ely. They also offer a navigable route between the River Nene and the Ouse.

Nearly all the locks on the Nene have conventional mitre gates at the upstream end and a single vertically lifting guillotine gate at the downstream end. This means the locks can be used as additional weirs in time of flood, when the mitre gates are chained open and the guillotines lifted to allow the water to flow straight through. No navigation is allowed at these times.

So because in high water times the Nene is used to channel excess water out to sea, boaters must stay away - or else! The flooding that we see in some places such as Port Holme and the Ouse Washes is the planned flooding of low lying areas designed for this. The flooding of low lying houses built on the flood plains is an inevitable consequence of allowing inappropriate building. With an increase in serious weather events that can only get worse.
So the moral is, move your home up hill and leave your boat in a safe and caring marina, like ours, or you could find your house under water and your boat stranded in a field!
Either way, don't blame the EA if they prioritise drainage solutions above recreational boating....

Mooring at Thrapston Bridge on the Nene, November 25th 2012

Patience moored at Thrapston Bridge on the Nene, September 20th 2012

So thanks again to Oundle Marina for looking after Patience!

Nene Floods 2

Driving through Cambridge at Fen Causeway and also across Port Holme at Huntingdon I see a lot of water, but John alerts me to the floods which are hitting the Nene in a big way!
The EA is recording near record heights at Lilford tonight, November 25th:

and at Oundle Marina staff have closed the chandlery and are going around checking moorings.

MARINA NEWS

Sunday 25th November. The water is very high in the marina and moorers may not be able to get to their boats. The staff & Environment Agency are out making sure that boats are not tied up too tightly. If you are coming to the marina today please do not put yourself or anyone else in danger.

We'll be OK at our pontoon in a safe basin, but how would you feel if you'd tried to save a few quid by leaving your boat at some godforsaken spot on the river?
This is Tewkesbury in 2007. From the M5 we clearly saw boats  of all kinds washed up and subsequently stranded on fields bordering the river at Tewkesbury.

 
 Later News ... "Lock mooring has become detached from Lilford Lock and is on its way down river towards Upper Barnwell Lock"
From Canal World Discussion Forum. 
And flooding pics here from ITV news.

Nene Floods

Popping across to care for Patience (see next blog) it became clear that there's an awful lot of water in the rivers around here.
At Huntingdon, Port Holme was awash and the race course was also flooded.
First the road leading to Oundle was partly flooded, then passing Barnwell Upper Lock we noticed water was pouring fiercely over the lock gates.

Further on, the marina levels were higher than usual but under the bridge at Oundle the river had burst its banks and was belting along at a great rate.
So once more, thank you The Environment Agency's  Floodline, with your warning:
Strong Stream Advice has been issued for the River Nene. Several locks on the River Nene are closed to navigation and are being used to discharge flood waters.

The Environment Agency strongly advises against attempting to boat on the River Nene. River flows are above normal and head-room at some sites will be restricted.
And thanks for your flood maps ...

... some of which are clearer than others!

Boat Stuck in River Nene

Since we moved from the Ouse to the Nene we've become increasingly aware of the unpredictability of the river and have faithfully signed up for Floodline advice.
Here's what can happen if you don't ... This is Ditchford lock near Northampton. But we note that Gurnamore got stuck on Thursday 1st Nov - and we received our flood warning at 9.35 on that day. Were the warning notices in place by the time they arrived? Had the locks already been "reversed" and the helmsman noticed too late? Here's a description on reversing locks, by the Environment Agency.

John has often quizzed me about "what I would do if ..." and here's a real poser.
The real answer is that you wouldn't set out if there is a Floodline warning and if the river is moving uncomfortably fast. I understand the owners of Gurnamore thought they'd signed up for Floodline but had not done so for the Nene. Perhaps this is a case for blaming the division between the EA and the CRT. Of course the Nene and the Middle Levels are used not only for leisure boating but also as a drainage system taking water from the East Midlands out to The Wash and surges of water are common. The EA has a different job from the CRT.

Evidently the boat was going downstream, west to east in this aerial view, heading for the lock to starboard then - perhaps because he was travelling too fast with the stream and would have hit the guillotine - slewed over to port, maybe hit the edge of the island and the force of the stream swung him round across the line of the green weir floats. Thank heavens he didn't keep on going ....
I feel sorry for the unhappy couple and their frightening experience, but am bound to say that if the water gets too fast or the conditions too challenging, it's far better to moor up and sit it out - even on the Nene, where good moorings are few and far between. Easy to say of course; tempting to plough on regardless; so hard to judge how fast the stream is while you're afloat; and if you're already scudding along at 6mph can your full power in full reverse actually stop you? I'm sure we couldn't stop in a straight line ....

* For more on this, including a video clip go to ITV News.
* For more pictures and for details of the two owners (who abandoned ship safely) read The Daily Mail.
* For details of the River Canal Rescue operation read this article.
* For detailed advice on coping with a narrow boat in fast river conditions read the thoughtful comments on Canal World. They are the best answers to John's quiz.
And anyone who thinks it's easy to cope in these conditions should read those comments very carefully indeed. There but for fortune go you or I ....

Making The Most of Moorings, Again

Last month, in Making The Most of Moorings,  I railed against the waste of riverside frontage where perfectly good visitor moorings could be provided for minimum effort and maximum gain by both local businesses (pubs and shops) and boaters.
Today, I feel just as strongly, having come back from a pleasant trip upstream on the Nene from Oundle to Irthlingborough.
Along the way we've spotted several places near Titchmarsh, Stanwick, Denford and especially Woodford, where moorings could easily be provided but nothing, it seems, has been done.
I'm not asking for a mooring at every pretty little place, (though maybe .... )

Naturally I appreciate that not everyone is positive to boaters and not everyone who owns a river frontage wants other folks' boats moored up on their patch. However,  I'm convinced there is a need and there is space for more visitor moorings on the Nene, where currently you can motor on for a couple of hours without finding anywhere to stop, and where there are pubs and shops within easy walking distance if only there was a mooring and a simple path. I'm not asking for water or pump outs!
Take Denford for example. A mooring near the lock is marked on my 2007 map but is there no longer. This could provide a really convenient stopping place to visit The Cock and have a meal. But I could find nowhere legitimate to stop, so we passed it by, £20 or so burning in my pocket.
At Woodford there is a huge length of river side, much of it once good moorings, but half of it proclaims Private (though no boats are moored there currently) and the other half is rough edged and with horses in the field. With grass rising up to the local church it has so much in common with Fotheringhay ...

... but instead of advertising it as £4 per night, or patrons only, or engaging the Environment Agency in some deal to make it a great mooring, we boaters have to pass by, a loss to The White Horse, The Duke's arms and the local supermarket.

I'm flummoxed! I know that at Isleham a rogue liveaboard made life difficult by over staying in a 48 hour GOBA mooring. I know that there could be maintenance issues, insurance questions, negotiations with private landowners and all sorts of potential obstacles. But really, is it so hard to have a local man with a spade or a farmer with a digger spending a day digging out a bed of reeds, smoothing the edges and banging in a few short posts, then creating a track from the river to the village?
At Elton, boaters flock to The Crown even though the riverside mooring is rough and we have to fight through the nettles to put down a gang plank. At Reach and Burwell much the same. In each case the attraction of the nearest pub wins out very time, with a crew of 2 or 4 or more likely to spend £20 per head per night.
It surely can't be for a lack of boaters. And there must be local rules, and therefore enforcement, about staying more than 48 hours. So why don't landowners and Parish Councils invest in a bit of riverside clearing - and why don't pubs pitch in with advertising? What am I missing? Surely it's win win?

Back Down The Nene

With the weather forecast to be a splendid sunny day today and foul rain tomorrow we aim to race home to Oundle in one go, as fast as poor Patience can travel (about 4 mph top speed before she overheats).

Dawn, autumn equinox, Irthlingborough

As predicted, after a bright and cold starry night the morning of the autumn equinox dawns clear at 7am with a touch of ground frost.

Early morning, autumn equinox, Irthlingborough

We leave early to make the most of the day. We turn in the river (only just - wouldn't want to be longer than 50 ft) and off downstream through the dappled shade and open fields on either side of the Nene. After some overcast conditions in the previous days the sun brings out the finest qualities of the river and we warm to it.

Willy Watt Lock

There are three or four boats on the river today, including one hire boat from Willy Watt marina which has some inexperienced crew. We help them out a bit before pushing ahead, through Titchmarsh Lock and, perhaps, the fleet of the Northamptonshire Royal Navy, ...

Naval vessel at Titchmarsh

... to arrive at Wadenhoe at 1pm to find the mooring at the King's Head full (not surprisingly on this fine day) so with our own sandwiches and a beer hastily made up in the galley we crack on, to arrive at Oundle by 3 pm - a really good pace, with Canal Planner estimating the 16 miles and 10 locks at 8 hours 15 minutes which we managed in 7 hours flat.

Patience at Upper Barnwell Lock

One reason for our speed, of course, is that there are so few moorings where you can pause and pop into a pub. A Great Shame!
On arrival at Oundle Marina we chat to new neighbours and learn that the marina has now been bought by new owners. The folks running the shop are delighted at the purchase and believe there will be a period of much needed investment. Sounds good to me - I hope the enthusiasm is catching.

Up The Nene Again (2)

Leaving our Thrapston moorings we continue upstream and pass Thrapston Mill.

This  marina was once a feature viewed from the A14 flyover but now it is an overgrown wasteland with warning signs:

 Even overlooking the typography of the signs (that massive U, and look again at that last N) this seems a great wasted opportunity for a riverside mooring, the management company being dissolved in September 2010. And sadly not the only missed opportunity on the river Nene.
We see this again at Denford, where a mooring by the lock has been withdrawn, and at Woodford where a perfect riverside mooring like that at Fotheringay, on the edge of a field below the church is no longer available. This simultaneously deprives the village of visitors to its pubs and shops and deprives boaters of a pleasant halt. It's a subject I'll return to later.
Slightly irritated we motor on, past Woodford Riverside where the marina is busy with diggers and building activity, which mollifies us a little, and the sinuous river and lovely views calm us down. A swan takes off with much pat pattering of webbed feet, a man walks his dog up a track through new stubble to a ridge with a single silhouetted tree ... these are worth remembering.
Now we come to Lower Ringstead Lock with its marina, called Willy Watt Marina. Even as I snigger at the silly pun I read that in fact the name originates as Willow Ait or Willow Island, the mill being listed in the Domesday Book, so I take back my negative thought. Read about the marina, today and the past at the Willy Watt Marina website. And beware the bridge immediately upstream of the lock - the weir is dead ahead so take the left hand channel!
 We pass Blackthorne Marina on our left though can see little of it, and now we're at Upper Ringstead lock with its manually operated guillotine lock which gives us a bit of upper body exercise rotating the large stainless steel wheel. Past the youth activity centre with hard-hatted youngsters screaming as they abseil from a wooden tower and it's nearly 1pm when we clear Irthlingborough locks and reach the exotically named Rushden and Diamonds mooring (being on the edge of this football club's stadium). Unfortunately for them their football club seems to be in receivership (I'm writing in September 2012, more info here) but fortunately for us, although the water and pumping facilities are closed, the well built moorings are just right.

As the predicted rain has arrived we batten down the hatches for a while until there is a marginally less wet spell and we trundle into the town. I am unimpressed by Irthlingborough, which seems a depressed place with a preponderance of kebab and pizza takeaways with pubs boasting "happy hours" and free pool. There is an interesting church tower (Church of St Peter - closed to visitors, haunted by youths in hoodies sheltering from the rain and squatting, smoking, on the rubbish bins like the caterpillars in Alice in Wonderland) but the move to China of the Dr Martens boot factory seems to have hit employment hard. The quirky fame of having had David Frost briefly teach at the local secondary modern school in 1958 cannot raise the town above the damage done to its architecture by nasty 1960's shops. This is a place in decline, without a pub we'd feel easy sitting in, and we avoid all three Chinese takeaways and both Indian takeaways to cook ourselves something substantial on the boat and provide our own entertainment reading improving books and Waterways World.
In retrospect we should have taken warning from the defaced signs at the lock - evidence of folks with nothing better to do (avoid your gaze now if you are of a sensitive nature).

In summary, a useful mooring when passing along the Nene, or I suppose as an overnight stay while watching Kettering Town FC, current residents at the football stadium (Kettering famously had Paul Gascoigne as their manager for just 39 days). Quite handy to visit Tesco's for provisions - but not recommended for holidays.

Up The Nene Again

After this frustrating year for boating, with strong stream advice and all, it was good to get back on the water again, setting out from our new home in Oundle Marina.
We planned three or four days, partly around the weather forecast and partly to explore the river and its pubs and villages.
The first section of only two hours is already becoming a favourite: Oundle to Wadenhoe through locks at Upper Barnwell, Lilford and Wadenhoe, ending up at The King's Head for lunch. All the locks are very scenic, the river is delightful, with fields opening out, trees closing in, Lilford Hall glimpsed between the trees ...

... houses with delightful gardens extending to the river, with little summer houses and dinky jetties and a very pretty bridge ...

just downstream of Lilford lock.
The King's Head and the church at Wadenhoe are well worth a visit - all within 2 hours boating from our base.
Suitably refreshed we motored on, through Titchmarsh, where the Middle Nene Cruising Club dominates the lock  but there are no apparent moorings for passers by like us.
On to Islip Mill Lock where we see the tallest bollards ever ...

... designed, we imagine, to cope with severely rising water levels.
On again to Thrapston, through their nine arched bridge and acutely right into some very pleasant moorings - and it's still only 4 pm.

Thrapston Moorings

The Nine Arched Bridge, viewed from upstream

Though the moorings are very close to the bridge, traffic at night is light and we are not disturbed by it.
Eating, however, is more of a problem. We inspect several pubs in Thrapston, none of which appeal unless you are keen on gaming machines, pool and karioke and though the Woolpack looks reasonable we opt for the ever so slightly pretentious Bridge Hotel which provides us with a few pints of Spitfire and excellent meals. We are satisfied to have paid more for better, though we think The Bridge's decor hasn't quite decided whether it's a wedding venue, a bar, a restaurant, a conference centre, a gentleman's club or a Maharajah's palace.
Thrapston itself seems a rather down at heel place. It has facilities for boaters in terms of supermarkets to stock up with but it feels tired and worn. John was intrigued by the remains of Thrapston Station and its railways and found this detailed explanation. He says:

The LNWR Nene Valley (Peterborough to Northampton) line station was on the site of Scotts (the summer house manufacturer) and the viaduct across the Nene was on the Midland Railway line from Cambridge to Kettering. The Midland Railway station is the one you can still see from the A14.
 The Nene Valley line is the one whose bridges (now footbridges) we kept passing under on the river.

Sections of the railway line seem now to be part of the Nene Way long distance route.