Bike, train, car, bike, boat, car

Despite the heat last night I'm glad I battened down the hatches. We enjoyed a sharp thunderstorm at about 0400 with some heavy rain, lightning and at least one tremendous crack of thunder that shook the boat.

We did a bit of car shuffling today, in that I cycled to Downham Market, took the train to Peterborough, cycled to Stanground and drove to Hilgay.

It was nice being in the air conditioned trains. I had about 40 minutes in Ely, so I cycled down to check out the visitor moorings. These are extensive and, when I looked, had plenty of space. I spoke to a couple of boaters there, one of whom was the person who had made the hash of entering Denver Lock. He told me he was dreading the return trip and the tricky entry into Salter's Lode Lock.

To today's boating, then. After lunch and a bit more car/bike shuffling, we set off down the Wissey. There didn't seem to be any flow in this downstream section, and progress was on the slow side. We passed this lovely steamer (complete with rain cover for the chimney).

Turning left onto the Great Ouse (or is it the Old West River here?) we passed under the railway line that I crossed by train in the morning, and came across this agricultural-looking activity.

Is it the outer skins of onions?

There are quite a few great crested grebes here. This is the best I could do with the camera while steering.

Despite leaving the boat in Norfolk it took an hour to drive home to Norwich. It's a big county. Our neighbour said there had been no rain for weeks. I did a bit of watering … and then we had a thunderstorm. The gardens certainly need the rain. Unfortunately the clouds meant we couldn't see the total lunar eclipse.

Wissey: sweet or sour?

We explored the River Wissey today, going up the Great Ouse to the junction with the Wissey and then the ten miles to Stoke Ferry and beyond.

There aren't many landmarks along here. The biggest is the Wissington sugar factory processing sugar beet. There were some mildly unpleasant smells, not at all sweet.

I don't know what happened to the best photo I took - the above will have to do. Oh, and this of the biggest pipe bridge I can remember seeing. There's not much to judge scale from, but I reckon it was at least 2m in diameter.

The next excitement was crossing the aqueduct over the Cut-off Channel. It would have been slightly more exciting had we been able to see over the high concrete walls. And the banks of the Wissey are such that we couldn't see anything at all of the Cut-off Channel.

Then came a sluice gate which is closed in times of flood.

There was little in the way of moving boats, but we encountered these weed cutters ...

... before coming up to the warning sign.

Beyond a largish caravan site at Stoke Ferry is a winding hole marking the end of navigation. As it looked like the sort of thing you find on canals I steered the bow into the point - but I had not taken the current into account which was acting strongly on the stern, This, together with a strongish breeze, was threatening to drive us into the weedy shallows so I aborted and turned the boat the other way. This was successful and we tied up against a field just downstream for lunch.

Then we carried on back to the EA moorings at Hilgay where we called it a day. It's been pretty hot.

People rave about the prettiness of the Wissey, but I found it mostly boring. Lots of tree-lined bends all looking the same as each other. I preferred yesterday's trip along the Relief Channel. At least you could see where you were going.