After church this morning we needed to move on as we had
used up our 48 hours on the mooring. We set off and cruised a short distance
down river to the facilities block. This was fairly urgent as three and a half
out of four cassettes were full. We also needed water.
Moored nearby was Euston 73, from Aylesbury. We had
a chat with Tony and Sue while we were using the facilities.
There are not many facilities on this river, which is why
many of the cruisers have sea toilets, which discharge directly into the river. By the time we left there were three boats
waiting. We passed the entrance to the River Lark, and we had hoped to moor at
the Black Horse at Littleport, but the moorings there were full, with large
cruisers moored stern on. This was a boat club outing from Upware Boat Club.
The EA mooring opposite was full as well, so we moved on down to the next
mooring a mile further on, where there was just one other boat.
Later, the boat club boats came past one by one, turning
round downstream from us, and cruising past us again, back to the pub where
there was a lot of horn hooting. We guessed they were saluting the commodore or
something similar.
0 locks, 5 miles. Dep 1145, arr 1345 (including 30 mins for
water etc)
Mon 22nd July
Littleport to Lakenheath
There is some hot weather heading our way over the next few
days. Today started off cloudy but was soon clear blue sky.
We left our mooring at Littleport to head for Brandon Creek
(or Little Ouse). We passed under the line of pylons that we had seen from the
middle levels.
James noticed that our fuel was getting low, and we had
planned to fill up half a mile into the Little Ouse. However, we had discovered
that the Little Ouse moorings facilities are closed on Monday and Tuesday. We
decided to stop and use our two spare 5L cans of diesel. We stopped on moorings
at Black Horse Farm, and James retrieved the two cans from the engine hold and
poured the contents into the tank. The boat should now get us to Brandon and
back.
We set off again and in half a mile we came to the moorings
by the Fish Inn, and were delighted to see Samos there. We hadn’t seen
Tom and Muriel since 2011, when we were last on these rivers. We met them first
because they had broken down on the Little Ouse, and we towed them from the
Lakenheath GOBA mooring to the Little Ouse moorings, and it took about three
hours in rainy weather. Subsequently we saw them at Littleport a few days
later, and more than three weeks later we were on the same bus as them from St
Ives to Cambridge. The buses run every ten minutes, so this was remarkable.
We stopped and got the chairs out on the bank and caught
up. We decided to have lunch at the Ship together, but when we got there, there
was a sign on the door saying, “Closed on Mondays and Tuesdays”. So we returned
to the bank, where another boat, Steel Away, arrived. They were Ian and
Lynne, friends of Tom and Muriel. Ian is the chairman of GOBA.
After a lot of chat (yes- subjects included toilets!), we
departed to continue our journey up the Little Ouse. There were lots of boats moored onto
farmland, and it seems that the owners, who were new in 2011, are very
enterprising. We will call in for fuel on the way back on Thursday.
We had heard stories of lots of weed on this river, but
there was nothing to prevent our progress.
We stopped on the GOBA mooring, where cows are free to
wander, opposite the RSPB reserve. James saw cranes here last time, plus
several bitterns. He had a wander along the top of the flood prevention bund
and saw plenty of different species but not cranes or bitterns.
0 locks, 11 miles. Dep 0930, arr 1615 (including 4 hours
with Samos)
Tue 23rd July
Lakenheath to Brandon
James went for a short walk on the ridge and saw 14
cormorants in a flock (they are usually solitary). Perhaps when they are
swimming underwater you can them a shoal. Looking them up online, a group of
cormorants is called a gulp. Not a lot of people know that.
Also spotted ; reed Warblers, an oyster catcher, marsh harriers,
Egyptian geese, greylag geese, little egrets. Sadly, still no bitterns or cranes,
although Hazel thought she might have heard cranes flying over at about 4am.
It was very warm, and we both had cool showers before we
set off.
We passed over the cut-off channel, a flood relief feature
that takes excess water to Kings Lynn. After this we noticed that there were no
more high artificial banks.
The water was very clear and we could see lots of fish. We
arrived at the EA mooring in Brandon. The final lock is too small for most
narrowboats (length 12m max).
It was very hot, and young lads from the village came to
swim, fish, paddle canoes, throw other kid’s bananas and shoes into the river, and
frighten any wildlife that might have ventured out.
When it cooled down a bit (not a lot) we ventured into the
village via a footpath and visited the Brandon Tandoori for a very nice meal in
pleasant air-conditioned surroundings. We then called in at the BP garage to
fill our spare diesel cans in case we don’t make it back to the Little Ouse Moorings.
Back at the boat we discovered that James had left his keys
on the back locker, and someone had been aboard. We didn’t notice anything
taken except possibly a 50p coin, but there was water on the floor from someone’s
wet feet. Valuables such as computers, binoculars, and musical instruments were
all present and correct.
0 locks, 5 miles. Dep 0905 arr 1045.
Next: back down the Little Ouse with a
visit to RSPB Lakenheath on the way. Denver and Downham Market at the weekend.
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