Little Thetford EA Mooring to Fidwell Fen EA Mooring
Everyone will be saying the same thing today, ‘What a difference a day makes!’ Yet it was surprising to see the chap in front of us pulling away wearing a woolly hat, it couldn’t be that cold surly! I started off the day wearing shorts, but soon changed into long trousers.
As we waited for the Geraghty zoom to kick off this morning we were passed by Simon Judge on NB Scholar Gypsy who is recently back from a trip to Belgium. Last year we joined him and nine other boats on a Thames Tideway cruise with St Pancras Cruising Club. There was only time for a short exchange between us before he passed on by, it was drizzling, maybe our paths will cross again.
Zoom this morning included details of forthcoming trips away and we were glad to see that the Londoners were now fully recovered from Covid. With two new variants about we’ll be doing our best to remember to have our masks with us in crowded places.
It was now raining properly, so we decided to sit it out and wait for it to ease before moving onwards. By midday we were ready to push off, heading southwards. Mick had called ahead to the Fish and Duck Marina to see how much their diesel was and if they might just have a 13kg bottle of LPG as we’d finished one bottle the other day. Calor Gas is a hard thing to find nowadays, none at Little Ouse Moorings or in Ely, so on hearing that they had some we needed to get there quickly before it all went.
Not far to where the river splits at Pope’s Corner. The Old West heading off to the west and the River Cam to the south, here sits the marina, steel on the river moorings and tuperware inside. We pointed down the Old West and pulled in on the service mooring, a touch short for us, but the chap had come out and pulled us alongside another narrowboat so the diesel hose would reach our tank.
The old gas bottle was removed and a new one put on the stern to drop into the gas locker later, Mick wanted to re-arrange the bottles anyway. Once we’d paid we then reversed away back to the junction and headed southwards onto the Cam.
The floodbanks now moved away giving us views of the grey day, we’d already got a touch damp as the diesel tank filled and several layers were required.
Sign posts were many today. Ely, Cambridge, St Ives and Burwell. We’d already decided and headed towards Cambridge, but should we do the Lodes first or head to Cambridge? Being grey we didn’t fancy going too far so at Upwell we opted to stay on the River Cam and pull up at the EA moorings.
I’d spotted a slightly strange thing on our Waterway Routes map at Upware. Here there are 72 hour patron moorings close to the pub Five Miles To Anywhere, then on the offside it said there were 48 hour patron moorings too. But how could you be a patron at the pub? The next bridge north was about a mile and a half away and heading southwards you’d have to cross first the River Cam at Bottisham Lock, 3.5 miles, then head back downstream to Upware Lock, another 3.5 miles, followed by another quarter of a mile to the pub. Quite a long way for a pint! But on a short landing by the pub was a rib with an outboard motor, do they come and collect you? Their website suggests that you would need to make your own way by dingy.
Round the bend we pulled in at the end of the EA mooring behind a couple of cruisers. A quick check confirmed it was a good location for Tilly. Too right it was with a very handy fence to aid friendly cover perusal. It was however a touch muddy and damp in the grassy bits!
As we had lunch I cooked up some quinoa for a quiche base. Todays quiche was to be a firm favourite from before I went gluten free, Smoked Salmon and Camembert. It may even be nicer with the quinoa crust.
0 locks, 3.82 miles, 13 degree plummet, 1 Simon, 3 rivers, 72.5 litres, 13kg gas, 1 cat with eye’s too big! 2 friends and some red leicester, 1 quiche, 1 damp grey day.
