Elton to Oundle

5 September

8.30 this morning as we were preparing to leave our peaceful mooring we caught sight of a flash of blue – another kingfisher. 

Off we went towards Warmington Lock, the first of the locks with a big wheel which you have to turn and turn and turn to work the guillotine gate. (The others you just have to stand there pressing a button and it works electrically.) The standard practice on the Nene is to leave the bottom gate open and the lock empty, which means that if, like us, you are going up the lock, you find it ready for you to go in, you fill it, open the top gates, go out, close the gates and then empty it again. All this takes quite a while, but we were lucky in that a boat arrived needing to go down the lock so we had no need to empty it. No such luck at the next one – Perio Lock.

We passed Fotheringhay Church in between Warmington and Perio Locks. There is less scaffolding on the church than when we passed it last month, but work is clearly continuing.

Cotterstock Lock gave us a break as it’s a ‘press the button’ lock, then we were back to ‘turn the wheel’ at Ashton Lock. But at Lower Barnwell, our last lock for today, there were two men painting bollards and the edge of the lock wall, and they very kindly offered to work us through.

We moored a little further on at Oundle Cruising Club in time for lunch. 

Moored on the river outside Oundle Marina

During the afternoon we walked into Oundle and had a longer look around than we’d had time for last time we were here. When visiting new places, I often look in Estate Agents’ windows at the prices of local properties. We have decided that at £1200 pcm, perhaps an apartment in Yarwell Mill is beyond us! Instead, we treated ourselves to tea and scones at Brew Babu, a very nice, if slightly expensive, teashop.

 

Part of Oundle School

An Oundle Street