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Thursday 20 September 2012

Onward to nowhere

After a quiet night moored at Godmanchester we got ourselves into gear and started the day at 8.40am this morning working our way through the Town lock, the first of the four we wanted to do today.  We passed a team of workmen already busy driving piles into the river bank at Godmanchester (along the backs of some seriously expensive houses) in a new flood defence scheme.   This is a part of the Gt. Ouse that travellers in the busy A14, that passes high over head as the road spans the valley, will often see flooded.




 Going under the A14 road bridge and not a lorry in sight..
 
 Lining up for our transit through the Huntingdon Town bridge
 
 Yarwood in the Houghton Mill lock landing.  This is a bit on the high side for narrowboats and getting in here without damage to paintwork was a trifle problematic especially as the wind was getting lively.
 Lock number two, Houghton Mill
 
Erica
 As we wound through the lovely Hemmingfords we spotted 'Erica' moored up.  We had spoken to the owners yesterday when they were in Godmanchester.  This lovely little craft is a replica Inspection Launch built by Peter Nicholls at Braunston . These type of boats were built for canal company bigwigs to inspect there investments in the days of  privately owned and funded canals.  Steering is by wheel rather than tiller and the wheel is towards the front.



 Lock three, the Hemmingford Lock
 
 Onwards past St. Ives and through this lovely bridge
 
 St Ives river frontage
 
 Our fourth and final lock of the day, St. Ives lock
 
Moored up in splendid isolation ...bar a few cows that is.

2 comments:

  1. What's it like going through St. Ives lock then?

    ReplyDelete
  2. Hi Kev
    Is this that lock that Avalon won't go through?

    All the locks are fine when going down stream but going up with 24 ton of boat on a singlr centre line can be problematic!
    Lesley

    ReplyDelete

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