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| The Boston Stump |
And what a lovely way to spend time when the sun is out and the skies are blue.
We joined the river Witham at Lincoln. The lock is unusual, as it is a guillotine lock, this means the top gate rises rather than opening like a door. Luckily this end of the lock is electrically operated, and all I had to do was insert my BW key and press the button. The bottom gates are traditional lock gates, which are operated manually. They were surprisingly easy to open, the beams were huge and looked really heavy.
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| Guillotine Lock |
Soon we were out of the lock and on our way. The river Witham is not as wide as the Trent but is extremely pretty and peaceful. We were heading to Bardney for the night.
The visitors mooring are all pontoons on the river, and usually situated near a village or a pub. Bardney has both. It’s village with a couple of shops, a butchers and a pub, The Old Angel Inn.
We got there around lunchtime and relaxed for the afternoon. The moorings in Lincoln had been very noisy as we had a road either side of us, one of which lead to the main refuse truck depot, so with had bin lorries coming and going at all hours.
It was lovely to sit and just hear the birds and the noise of the water against the side of the boat. We took a walk into Bardney thinking we hadn’t visited before, which turned out to be wrong when I checked back through the blogs. We had been before and visited the church and both pubs, one of which is now closed, so sad, but the angel is still open, and we headed in for a pint. Nothing dark on for the Captain, so he made do with Cruzcampo. The pub has a real community feel about it, so hopefully this will help it survive these terrible time for our hospitality industry.
https://oldangelinnbardney.com/
After a pint we did a little shopping at the Coop.
Next morning I lay in bed relishing in the peace, and heard my first cuckoo for a long long time. There was no road noise at all which made a nice change.
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| Cuckoo |
We left Bardney and headed for Dogdyke. A place we know we have visited before, and loved due to its closeness to RAF Coningsby, the home of the Battle of Britain flight, as well as one of my favourite aircraft the Typhoon, also known as the Eurofighter. These planes make the most amazing noise when they take off and accelerate up into the sky, and I just love to hear them. There is also a pub, The Packet Inn.
We moored up and listened and watched the Typhoons doing their stuff, according to Google the pub was open so we took a walk to it about 4.30pm, only to discover they didn’t open until 6. We decided rather than return to the boat, we would sit on the patio and watch the river as the sun was out. It came as a surprise to the landlady, who spotted our legs, and came out to see what was occurring. Although she didn’t open the pub, she did offer to get us a pint whilst we waited, very kind of her. And there was even Murphys stout on for the Captain. We sat outside and were joined by a couple of fellas and their kids a little later. They were both in the forces and stationed nearby, so had a lot in common with the Captain. When the pub opened we went in and had another pint before heading back for tea.
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| Eurofighter |
I heard my second cuckoo next morning.
Although the weather has been warm, it has also been windy and gusting. This caused a few problems next day. It was the last hop into Boston, and the Captain decided we would top up with fuel at Langrick boatyard, as the price was good at £1.49 a litre. Getting onto their service pontoon wasn’t a problem as the wind was in our favour, but when it came time to set off, we couldn’t get away from it as the wind kept pushing us back on, you wouldn’t think that wind would affect a 16 ton boat so much, but oh boy does it. The Captain used all his skills and tricks and eventually we were off.
The visitor moorings at Boston are not easy to pick out, as it is a mixture of visitor and long term without a discernable boundary. A lady was messing about on her boat so we asked her and she pointed us to the right place.
Our problems with the wind really hit this time, the moorings are what are known as finger pontoon moorings, which meant we had to back onto them leaving the nose of the boat sticking out. The wind blew us this way and that. The Captain got the back end in and I jumped off with a rope, then the wind just took the front end and I just couldn’t pull it back in. Following the Captains instructions, I wound the rope round the first bollard and hung on for dear life, whilst he put full power and used the front edge of the pontoon to pivot on and bring the boat back in line. The engine smoked and eventually we were in.
After another hot day we walked into Boston and a pint in the Wetherspoons, The Moon Under Water. They had Adnams Broadside on for the Captain and he treated me to a curry for tea.
We were staying in Boston for a couple of days, its about a 15min walk into the town centre, and we decided that on the first day we would do a big shop at Lidl, walking there (17min) and a taxi back. We were joined on the pontoons firstly by NB Easy Gill, and then by NB Maudette. Had a chat with both boats Captains and crew. Easy Gill was heading out onto the Wash into the North sea, yes the actual sea, to Kings Lynn and the Mid Levels. An interesting trip and not for the faint hearted, the Captain said we will do it one day, will we indeed????
After a quiet afternoon we took a walk to the nearest pub, it used to be called The Withem Tavern but it is now home to Rancho’s Grill. We were very impressed with everything, it is beautiful inside and out. The beer was great with Murphys stout for the Captain, and the menu looked amazing, as did the food we saw come out.
Our last day in Boston was spent looking round the town, as it was Saturday the market was on and I love a market, unfortunately we left it a bit late in the day, so a lot of the stalls were packing up. Undeterred we wandered round the remaining ones and then found a little gem, The Boston Guildhall museum, free to get in and very interesting.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boston_Guildhall
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| Inside Boston Guildhall |
We ended a very enjoyable afternoon with a pint in the Wetherspoons, a Honey porter from Conwy Brewery for the Captain. Then back to Rancho’s. I had thought about eating in here, until we were told there was a 2 hour wait for food. It was very busy.
We left Boston next morning with a plan in place to go round Trentfalls with a convoy organised by a gentleman on Try The Trent facebook page, that is planned for the 11th June, which gave us plenty of time to get to the meeting place at West Stockwith.
32 Miles, 2 locks and 1 river.