Last weekend I realized it was time to fill up the boat since it is best to have a full tank of diesel before winter commences. The only trouble is that the nearest fueling depot is three or four hours away on the River Great Ouse.
This journey would consequently be a serious endeavor, involving opening two locks. Which I did not know how to do. So off to a bookstore, where I purchased guides that served mainly to frighten me, and then early Sunday loaded the boat with children and snacks and set off.
Civilization drops off at the edge of Cambridge. It takes just a few minutes to go from crowded busy streets to deep country, with only the occasional herd of cattle gazing at us as we passed. You can go miles on the river without seeing any people, or even glimpsing a modern road in the far distance.
We passed a few pubs and country houses and found ourselves at the Baits Bite Lock. I jumped off and held the rope while Byron checked that our key worked the box. It did, so the next question became, where were the bollards?
We tied the boat down and took our guidebook over to stand next to the (abandoned) keepers house and ponder the question. I was reading the chapter on how to operate locks when a man hailed us from the other side. He wondered if we had a key?
We replied that we had a key but that it was our first time trying to go through. The stranger quickly walked across the footbridge and came down, patted my arm, and then started to rapidly explain all that we needed to know about getting through a guillotine lock.
I scrambled on to the boat and pushed off, Byron drove us into the lock, and the nice man shut the gates behind us, then opened the next set. He and Byron stood above talking and laughing while the children and I stood in the boat watching nervously as the water level dropped, taking the boat down seven or eight feet. Byron jumped down and we motored away, waving and shouting our thanks.
The next lock was much the same, though we were in a queue and chatted with a new set of interesting strangers. Then we were off again in a vast flat wild landscape, with herons and all sorts of fabulous birds swooping and swimming around us. We waved at other boats when they passed, and eventually found a small private marina next to the Five Miles From Anywhere No Hurry pub (most famously the home of the Upware Republic) that the guide claimed would have diesel.
But alas, there was neither an attendant on duty nor any diesel pump to be seen, and the local residents regarded us with suspicion. In the process of turning the boat round we seemed to pick up a snaggle of weeds. Byron did the short term fix of putting the boat in forward and reverse rapidly, but from that point our progress was much more slow. The wind also picked up at that point, making it impossible to know if we had mechanical troubles.
Onward, and wondering if we would make it to the next possible source of fuel before closing (because everything closes early on Sunday) we were dazzled by a brilliantly sunny afternoon. The children settled in the cabin and I wandered around doing necessary tasks. Byron was stuck with the job of steering because at six foot six he is simply too tall to hang out inside the boat.
Eventually we drew up next to the Fish and Duck at Popes Corner. This pub has been serving river trade for nearly eight hundred years, standing sentinel at the junction of three rivers. We had just moored when we turned around and noticed with great surprise the people who sold us the boat.
The coincidence that they would drive out to an isolated riverside pub and arrive precisely at the same time we moored was felicitous if not a true miracle. We talked for a bit and after everyone enjoyed refreshments they kindly agreed to teach us how to pull the boat around for fuel. It was quite a tricky maneuver, and it is highly unlikely that we could have done it without assistance.
By the time we finished filling the tank it was nearly four in the afternoon. The entire day had been consumed by our quest for fuel, and we realized that it would be impossible to make it back to Cambridge before dark. We decided it would make more sense to continue on to Ely.
It was a short journey to this Fens city, once an island but now part of the undulating farmland. We moored near the train station and walked to the nearest pub, which offered tasty treats for the whole family and tables above the water. We were mystified by the seemingly derelict ducks that ambled about under the tables and along next to the boats.
After the food we walked up through the park to the Cathedral and the children gasped at the sunset turning the sky pink behind the enormity of the building.