A damp and gloomy day.

After a pretty good day on Saturday we had heavy showers move in yesterday afternoon, and the wet theme has continued on today, not particularly heavy but fairly constant light rain and drizzle, which continued till mid–afternoon.  Still, needs must, and we upped sticks at just before ten, heading around the corner to Islip Lock.

Leaving the yacht club moorings at Thrapston

Even though the river has risen several inches, the low bridge below the lock gave us no problems.

It’s a lot higher than some of those on the Middle Levels!

The blue boat on the moorings in the top picture was getting ready to go as we left, so we waited for them in the lock. We finished up sharing all six locks to the Rushden and Diamonds moorings with Bob and Mo on NB Mystical and Idyllic.

The medieval Nine-Arch Bridge over the river.
The arch to the side of the navigable one shows that it’s been widened in the past. There are limited moorings tucked in a short arm on the left, this side of the bridge.

Thrapston had two railway stations at one time, the LNWR bridge has been removed, but the impressive blue brick viaduct that carried the Kettering to Cambridge line still spans the river, dwarfing the modern A14 road bridge.

We’d agreed between the crews that we’d leapfrog the locks, taking it in turns to stay behind and reset the lock we’d just left. Mo said they’d do the first, then a boat came around the corner, meaning that it could be left full.

So we both arrived pretty much together at Denford Lock, the next upstream.

Denford Lock, mine to reset and it’s back to manual operation for this one.

We were up and out quickly, one thing about these locks is that they fill swiftly. Unfortunately no timely arrival saved me having to empty it again, though. In fact, Mo got away with two out of three today, I had to reset all of mine!

Gloomy day

There are some fine moorings below the church at Woodford…

…but they don’t welcome visitors!

There’s a new boaters organisation only recently established, called Friends of the River Nene. Along the lines of GOBA, it’s aim is to address the shortage of visitor moorings on the river by making arrangements with riparian landowners for visiting boats.




One such is at Woodford, to the south of the village.

A huddle of cygnets


Lower and Upper Ringstead Locks were next, only 10 minutes between them and with the delightfully named Willy Watts Marina alongside the former.

Lower Ringstead Lock

Little Egret in a tree

We disturbed his fishing!

But the heron was unperturbed.

M & I waits for us in Upper Ringstead Lock

Last one of the day, at Irthlingborough
This one is considerably deeper than any of the others today.

Out of the lock and the moorings at Rushden and Diamonds are visible in the distance. Plenty of room there today.

As I said, it’s been damp most of the day, but at least it’s stayed fairly warm. Could be more of the same tomorrow as we head for Wellingborough.

Locks 6, miles 9