Oundle and Fotheringhay

Before setting off this morning, Andrew walked into town to buy a newspaper and then he and Mike pumped out the part of the engine space which is not cleared by the bilge pump - there is a slight leak from the calorifier but we decided that it was not worth the risk of trying to fix it at this stage.

Getting away from the mooring was a little tricky - we had to reverse out into the main stream before being able to make our way under the bridge.

It was a rather cold day, overcast until the evening and often rather windy - as Mike found to his cost at one lock where a combination of wind and current made it less than straightforward to manoeuvre the boat from the landing into the lock.

The river is remarkably varied - no stretch stays the same for very long.

The guide books describe the country as full of 'squires and spires' - certainly we saw plenty of the spires. There was almost no stage where at least one church is visible, often more. Towards the end of the day towers seemed to be more frequent.

Fotheringhay church - which lost much of its original length long ago - dominated the small village around the place where Mary Queen of Scots met her untimely end. The castle is no more - only a mound and a tiny piece of the wall.

Just after we passed Oundle Marina we shared the lock with a boat which had just set off.Imagine our frustration when he told us that we could have found an elsan disposal point inside the marina - no possibility of turning around now!

There is a lot of wildlife to see - flora as well as fauna. Although much of it is to be expected - plenty of offspring for parent swans, geese and ducks. At one point we saw a pair of kites, hovering over a field with expectations a a farmer turned over the ground. (Too far away to photo, alas)

As we noted yesterday, mooring is less than easy but we did find a space at Oundle for lunch, although it was not convenient to walk into the town - mike would have liked to look for a missing map, but he will just have to be patient for now! (The river guide is helpful but does lack the detail of an OS map and there are numerous errors)

Towards the end of the day the sky began to clear with rather more blue sky than earlier in the day.

Eventually, shortly before Water Newton we opted for a bank-side - mooring - even if it did involve using the gangplank to let Mike back on after securing the boat!