River trip

By stoat on May 1, 2006.


If JA can blog about Azaleas, I don't see why I shouldn't mention narrowboating. So we chugged up the Cam (/Ouse) to Ely to visit the cathedral again, it repays multiple visits. Happily the choir were practicing, and then they had a choral service, with unbelievers like us allowed to listen.

And the next day down Reach Lode to Reach May Fair (its been going since the 1200's, folks, though I doubt they had climbing walls and walls of death there then). Reach Lode, as the pic shows, gets very very thin towards the end (worryingly so, if like us you've never been there before) but there is a turning pool at the end. Note the bicycle carried on the boat ahead.

And then back to Cambridge, through clouds of 8's practising for the May bumps whenever they are.

And to insert some weather/climate, it was unseasonably cold, as it has been for a while; but sunny on the Sunday.

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So you must explain more for those of us unfamiliar with the Old World. Do you have your own boat, and just pop it in the canal and head off? Are you passengers on someone's boat? How does this work?

[I wondered if this needed explaining. We don't have a boat; friends do; they hire it to us on slightly favourable rates. Its moored at the bottom of their garden in Cambridge... maybe I should plug them: http://www.littlepinkcloud.com/zinfandel/ -W]