Northampton to Manor Farm Mooring

Wednesday 8th August

Well, the sun is still shining and it’s certainly not raining, but it is definitely cooler.  We had a peaceful night at our town centre mooring, only disturbed by the Canada geese flying in at about 5.30!

A rather more leisurely start today, not on our way until 9.15 This was after I had had a walk round the whole of Morrison’s extensive carpark in a fruitless search for somewhere to recycle bottles.

The first three of today’s locks were much like the canal locks we are used to but then we got to the ones with a guillotine bottom gate. These are not difficult to work but they do take quite a long time to do as the guillotine goes up and down very slowly (probably just as well, really).

There was an incredible amount of duckweed around the first few locks; in places it covered the whole water surface. 

We did make an unscheduled exploration of a bit of the Nene we hadn’t intended to visit (the sign pointing out the right way was very small!). 

 We stopped for lunch on the lock mooring above Whiston Lock, thinking that if a boat came up the river towards us, they could use the lock first, and if one came up behind us, we would abandon lunch and both use the lock. As it happened nb Phenomenal arrived just as we finished lunch and we then shared Whiston, White Mills, Barton and Doddington Locks with them which speeded progress up a little.

There have been several swan families on this stretch of the Nene, plus a couple of cormorants.

In contrast to last night’s mooring in Northampton, tonight we are moored at Manor Farm mooring, a ‘Friends of the River Nene’ site near Great Doddington, it's very rural, though we do have company – a small narrowboat with a father and son aboard and a skiff. Yes, a 1904 skiff, crewed by a man and two women (we guess in their fifties or sixties) who have rowed here from Cambridge!!  They are heading for Billing so have nearly finished their journey, wild camping along the way. The things people do for fun!!

This evening we walked along the Nene Way up to Great Doddington where we had a lovely meal at the Stag’s Head. The walk back gave us great views over the river and the water filled gravel pits beyond.