Yesterday evening the wind died to nothing giving some lovely reflections.
A Black Prince Narrowboat came down stream and moored at the moorings the other side of the bridge.
This morning the sun was streaming in, there was no wind and it was warm. We set to and washed the boat roof, this was so we could see the rust spots easier as in places all that is visible is a small crack, but scrape it and great lumps come off. Once that was done we wandered down to the Pumping Museum.
In the car park they had three steam powered Fire Engines all in steam with there copper, brass and paint work gleaming.
I shot a bit of video of the steam fire engines running.
They also had an old what could best be described as a pickup to tow it with instead of horses. It is actually a first world war Royal Flying Corp lorry.
The were serving a mean “Hot Dog” in the museum cafe as well as bacon butties, we resisted these and home made cake, washed down with mugs of tea.
As it was a special event they also had the engines running, these are all air start and beautifully turned out, with many hours of work spent on them. I shot this piece of video as they started the Hot Bulb twin cylinder engine.
Here is a bit of video of the 2 stroke diesel engine running with its twin valve arrangement.
They also have a good collection of hand tools that were used on the land.
Some of the other engines running.
One thing I must mention before we leave the museum is their Local Weather Forecasting System which is considered by some to be very accurate.
Once we had our fill of engines we wandered over the road to the river side moorings, there were now three Narrowboats moored there so we stopped for a short chat, one of them managed to flick his Life ring over the side but planned to collect it before they left for Isleham. We then headed back to the boat to treat all the rusty bits on the roof with Kurerust, I scraped while Diana painted. While we were doing this the three Narrowboats came by.
At twenty past four we set off towards Ely for the night, coming under Prickwillow bridge there floating opposite the moorings was the Life ring, so we picked it up and will drop it off to them next time we go to Isleham.
At the end of the Lark we turned left on the Great Ouse, by now it was a bit chillier with the breeze coming down the main river. Ely Cathedral looks like a castle on the sky line from this angle.
Passing through Ely we spotted that Kev and Debs were in so we drew alongside to be invited in for tea and meet the new puppy. While we were with them a steam train left Ely crossing the bridge just ahead of us, not only did the engine look splendid but so did the carriages. They get a lot of steam trains calling at Ely. After saying goodbye we headed a little further upstream for the night to the Little Thetford visitor moorings, we have not stopped on this one before.Just before mooring up we passed this young lady sitting in the sun.
1 comment:
They do get a lot of steam trains at Ely, but that one was particularly special. It was the first outing for LMS Jubilee Class 4-6-0 no 45699 Galatea since restoration from scrapyard condition. It was a private charter, not publicised in advance, so there would have been relatively few anoraks about to witness the event. You did well!
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