Why The Nene is our favourite river - plus quiz answers

 Soirry to keep you waiting (I've been busy).  Can you tell a red kite from a marsh harrier, or a wren from a sparrow?  Find out in the answers to the questions in Part Three of our Best Ever Cruise saga  at the end of this post. 

Meanwhile I'd better finish of the tale of our Best Ever Cruise. last time I left us in March on the Middle Level Navigations.  Well there's no much to say about the rest of the Middle Levels because most of the time you're in a ditch with high sides. I doi remember that the water was wonderfully clear and we passed over some shoals of large roach or possibly rudd I suppose.

So we come to our return up the river Nene.  The weather was very hot and sunny so we took to rising very early and putting in a few hours before the heat got the better of us. We should do that more often as the misty dawn mornings are beautiful. And I have to say that most of the Nene is beautiful too. I'll let some photos do the talking. (Some of these are from  on the way down, including thoise with our best friends Rick and Marilyn). On the way up our son Peter joined us which was a help in the burning heat.

Why we loved the Nene:

Lovely old mill buildings

Clear water

Wildlife

Vast water meadows

Interesting lock structures, some mercifully electrically operated

Would you want to lift this one manually?

Sometimes you just have to, where you spin the lift wheel forever to lift the huge guillotine gates. Thank you Rick

Others in rare formats

Lovely old bridges

Moorings are scarce but the good ones are really nice

The view from the mooring at Irthlingborough

Bucolic scenes

Well in fine weather the Nene takes some beating don't you think?

Kath left for home at Northampton and Peter and I sweated back up the narrow Northampton arm with its 17 lock flight to get  back to the Grand Union.

Peter doesn't normally take the helm but he soon got into the swing of it -encouraged no doubt by the fact that I would have to work the locks in the scorching heat.

And so we reached the Grand Union at gayton junction.  Home would be reached by turning south but we headed north to take Herbie back for another rest at Buckby after which it was the home stretch all the way back to the dear old Slough Arm where Herbie had her own berth. On those final days we were lucky enough to get in at one of our favourite stops in Great Linford, Milton Keynes,

and another at Apsley

then a visit from our grand daughter Grace (now 18). What a sweetie

And so ended our Best Ever Cruise. 569 miles and 330 locks.  What a spring and summer. Is it any wonder it wins our award.  I hope you enjoyed all the pictures and maybe someone might now be tempted to take in the Anglian waterways. Just make sure you do it in fine weather.

And so to those quiz answers.

.Of course Adam, as ever, had been pretty good at recognising canal places but this time we had some wildlife questions too.  You might need to look back at my previous post as a reminder of the phoitos

Q1 Concerned our concern (see what I did there) over the alarming behaviour of Herbie in a lock on the river Ouse. At one point we were afraid she might capsize. It was all down to the grab chains on the lock wall getting caught on Herbie's base plate edge. 

As the water in the lock lowered Herbie began to tip over at a frightening angle.  In thise locks you can' t just drop a paddle like you can on most canal locks and it takes a while to shut the sluices or paddles or penstocks or whatever they are called in that place. Anyhow with the help of Rainman we acted as fast as the pesky lock mechanisms would allow. I shut the lower and and Rainman raised the upstream Guillotine and all was saved and Herbie slipped off the chains with a bang.  I suppose those chains are some sort of safety feature but I fear thay may be anything but.

Q2 and Q3 were bird pictures  2 was a barn owl, and 3 was an oyster catcher (presumably after freshwater mussels)

Q4 asked about the number of alcohol uints we each consumed at the Fort St George in Cambridge in a few short hours.  I fear that that answer is 12.78 which is 90% of a woman (Kath in this case) allowance for a whole week and 60% of mine (all according to UK medicl advice) .  

Q5 was a picture of a Marsh Harrier

Q6 showed a Common Tern

Q7 showed a Wren (Kath used to be a Wren but she never looked liked that)

Q8 showed a sugar refinery> i'm not sure whetehr those silos contiined sugar or  beet pulp or what but anyhow lots of sugar beet is grown around the fen area.

Q9 The traditional worker we passed as we cruised the fens near Salters Lode was an eel catcher.  I saw him on TV after and he claimed to be the last person to earn his living from the traditional wicker traps.

Q10 featured a picture of a tower and I don't know what it is. Neither does our old pal Rainman although he did cunnigly confirm its postion by looking on Google Streetview so I wasn't imagining it. That still doesn't explain why such an interesting building doesn't seem to be described anywhere on the internet.

PS Oh yes it is. My mistake was looking for it in Outwell when it is in fact in Upwell. It seems it dates from the 15the century!

The copyright on this image is owned by Michael Garlick  and is licensed for reuse under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0 license.

Stay tuned for some more 20 years of Herbie Awards -they won't be nearly as long!