Best Cruise Awards quiz

   Here's part three of our quiz based on our Herbie Award for our Best Ever Cruise. It had been pretty good so far but the best was yet to come.  Leaving Bedford we were joined by three old friends, Paula and Roy who lived in Bedford and David (Rainman) who had driven up all the way from Rickmansworth

Rainman totally failed to live up to his name as the weather was(and would remain) SCORCHIO!

Somewhere near Great Barford we stopped fr a pub lunch which will always be remembered for the machine in the toilets selling inflatable sheep! I can't remember where our pals disembarked but waving them goodbye we pressed on to somewhere near Godmanchester where we very nearly sank Herbie

It was in this lock

 

1. Can you guess why the boat was in danger of capsizing in the lock?

Visitor moorings on the Ouse are provided by the Environment Agency and by the Great Ouse Boaters Association (GOBA). The EA ones are very neat. Here's one we stopped at on a balmy summer evening

How nice to have mooring bollards. 

2. Can you name this bird  that patrolled the far bank as the light faded?

3.Or this one we saw earlier that afternoon

Next morning we made our first detour by heading up the river Cam

and managed to nab this perfect mooring right outside the Fort Saint George pub

and spent  a pleasant evening drinking Old Rosie cider with our son Peter who lives in Cambridge.

4.  I fear we may have drunk 3 pints of it each. At 7.3% alcohol -how many 'units' of alcohol did we each consume? ( a bit off topic I know)

Back down the Cam are various creeks whose entrances look like this

Squeezing through one of them we found the entrance to the wild and wonderful Wicken Fen.

Wicken Fen is renowned for its wildlife and we weren't disappointed. Creeping up the narrow and shallow cut

we were soon accompanied by this bird. 

5. Can you identify it?

6. Then name this next one that minutes later came to join us.

Finding a lush mooring at the end of the dyke, we tied up and set off exploring. 

Wildlife was evident everywhere. It didn't take us long to find this little fellow on his/her nest.

7. Can you identify it?

I wont insult you by asking what was in this next nest we saw

Or who was skulking in the long grass

or what these are. I just love the stripy chicks

Have you ever tried to grasp a nettle? You can do it without being stung if you put finger and thumb above and below the leaf and quickly clamp them. But at Wicken Fen they have a rare variety of  stingers that don't sting. Here's proof

The day and night of we spent at the Fen was a highlight of the trip. Next morning it was back down to the main river but not before negotiating this tight exit onto the little cut which feeds the main river

Soon we were to leave the Cam and rejoin the main River Ouse once again passing through Huntigdon and Ely.  There was one more detour we wanted to take and that was down the River Wissey

Turning into the Wissey we soon found a really good mooring for the night

and next morning set off to expore this lovely little river. Well I say little, at one place the river widens into (or perhaps passes through) this lake 

8. but what's that in the background? What do those silos hold?

The Wissey is quite short and we soon came to the end of the navigation at Whittington

So we turned and headed back in the blazing sunshine where even the weed cutter boat needed shelter from the sun (note that we are well and truly in plastic boat territory)

So we rejoined the  navigable Ouse which stops at the mighty Denver sluice where, when the tide is just right, they release you for the short but scary run up to Salters Lode entrance.

After all the tranquility and remoteness of places like Wicken and the Wissey  we were about to get  a boost to our adreniline levels. Crossing the short tidal section between Denver and Salters Lode is scary but exciting.

It's reasonably scary because you have to sight the almost hidden entrance and turn the boat at right angles against the outgoing tide. Make a mistake here and you could end up getting washed towards Kings Lynn!  The first thing you see is a boat exiting Salters Lode frantically gunning their engine to turn the boat against the tide.  That's your best clue to where to aim for. As you can see, the entrance is not visible at this point

At last you see the rubber tyre fenders and start judging your turn

After a rapid handbrake turn and a boost of full throttle we were back in the safety of the lock and back on the Middle Levels

Being safely back on the Middle Levels we pushed on towards Upwell and Outwell, and while doing so we passed a man working on his ancient trade, and we since learned that he was the last one in England to do so in his way. later I saw a TV item about him. so

Question 9 is what was the man doing?

We made our first stop on the short mooring pontoon in Upwell and went to look at the church with its angelic interesting ceiling

Now here's question 10.  While we were there I took this photo. At least I think I did. The time stamp shows it to be when we were at the church, but combing the internet I can find no reference to this structure. Does anybody know what it is because I have no idea?

Then it was back under the pesky bridge which seemed even lower than before. We had to dismantle the top of our roof box.

All I will say about our return across the rest of the middle levels was that the weather was really hot, and we spent a great evening in the pub in March with our good  friends John and Irene who were travelling in the opposite direction in their lovely little narrowboat Rosie Piper. Here are our boats moored up below the pub. 

Well, a super cruise so far . By the time we reached March we'd done  394 miles and 185 Locks and we still had the Nene and the Grand Union to come, but the weather was getting really really hot and lifting the guillotine gates on some of those Nene guillotine locks are hard going. 

Stay tuned for that, but meanwhile here are the answers to part two of the quiz. from my previous post.

The first question was about the factory we saw across the fields. It was McCains oven chip plant, right there among the spud fields

Q2 asked how many miles of navigable waterways does the middle levels have, and the answer is almost exactly 100 miles!

Q3 The villages were Upwell and Outwell and they are in Norfolk

As has been pointed out I seem to have two Q3s. Anyhow the next answer is:

The opening times of the final Middle Levels lock, Salters Lode are set by the timing and state of the tide outside

Q5 (I think)  The building is Ely Cathedral

Q6 The river dweller we saw below Hermitage lock was a seal

Q7 The town with the beautiful bridge is St Ives

Q8 Thar's a carp, identifiable not only by its shape but by the long dorsal fin along its back

Q9 Thats Godmanchester

Q10 Penstocks is what they call the paddles

and finally

Q11 The Ouse is seen by narrowboaters crossing the high aqueduct just below Cosgrove (Adam, I'll allow Wolverton)