Steam trains, boats, planes and parachutes

Not such an exciting day as yesterday: the anchor stayed unused (but ready if needed). We had another early-ish start and kept going until (almost) sunset.

We left March at 0820 and continued along the old course of the River Nene. At Floods Ferry the old course of the Nene bears left; we took Whittlesey Dyke to the right.

nb Salar was leaving Ashline Lock as we approached; they opened a paddle for us while we were securing the boat to the lock landing. nb Annie and Walt were behind us; they also helped and we were soon under way to our 1430 appointment at Stanground Lock. We were ahead of schedule, actually arriving almost an hour early. I had been expecting to have to wait on the lock landing but the lock keeper waved us in. Everyone had been early, she said, and she was looking forward to being able to run some more water into Whittlesey Dyke to keep the level up. She must have been doing that before we got there as our speed had been dropping with the flow against us.

We stopped at Peterborough to fill and empty, and decided to carry on another three hours or so as we had time in hand.

Today was not without interest. As we left Peterborough we heard a steam train whistle; at Orton Lock we glimpsed the source of the evocative sound travelling along the Nene Valley Railway.

That's the Union of South Africa loco behind the wooden buildings.

At Water Newton Lock Jan pointed out some objects in the sky. They probably look like dirt on my camera lens - or on your computer screen - but those specks on my photo are what I'm talking about.

Parachutists, at least eight of them, were spiralling slowly to the ground behind the trees.

Some were tandem jumps.

When I turned back to look at the lock the low sun was making the scene very picturesque.

At the end of today's journey we tied up alongside another boat at Wansford Station, where steam trains were running until after dark. This was an excellent spot for watching the train passing over the bridge above us.

My camera and I were struggling to take decent pictures in the gloom. I'll leave you with this shot of the train at night running towards Peterborough.

Tomorrow looks like being another long day: we're aiming for Oundle.

WEED!

We were getting on so well, the Twenty Foot River and us. We'd successfully negotiated one of the lowest bridges on the Middle Levels. Nothing disturbed us at our wild mooring last night. We easily got back into the centre channel this morning … and then came the weed.

There was no escaping it. The vile stuff spread from one bank to the other and clogged the prop verty quickly. In the worst areas I was down the weed hatch every few yards. Progress, as can be imagined, was almost non-existent.

This is our lunch 'mooring': stuck in the middle of the waterway.

There was so much weed coming out of the hatch that I knew I was actually pulling it off the bottom of the river.

I had to resort to punting with the cabin shaft to try to reach some clearer water - it's not easy punting a narrowboat.

Eventually the visits down the weed hatch became less frequent and we reached the junction with the Old River Nene. I had originally wanted to explore down to Benwick and Ramsey, but our experience with the weed rather put us off that idea. We turned left towards Upwell and Outwell instead. Funnily enough, we hadn't seen a single boat since joining the Twenty Foot nearly 24 hours earlier. Even the outer reaches of the BCN have more boats.

The route to Three Holes via Popham's Eau looked clear, wide and inviting, but we chickened out and turned left here too. The signs erected by the Middle Level Commissioners have writing that's far too small for me to read.

Before getting to Marmont Priory Lock we rang the number as instructed and left a message. No-one got back to us. At the lock itself we rang the bell, again as requested, and worked ourselves through in the normal manner. Nothing seemed to require the attentions of a lockie, who didn't materialise.

Here's something I hadn't come across before: a receptacle for tips for the lock keeper.

Needless to say, I didn't add to the coins in the tin.

Very soon we arrived in Upwell and found ourselves in our home county of Norfolk.

We tied up on the first public mooring, March Bank, I think it was called, but I then cycled up to the Church Bridge mooring and saw that we would fit there, so I moved the boat up.

We visited our friend Sally in Outwell after tea.