Saturday 3 November 2012 Denver Sluice

Last night was another clear bright moon and star light night and  I didn’t go out I think there may have been a touch of frost on the grass this morning to check. The air temperature fell to 1°C.

We left The Ship EA moorings at 0950 hrs. and the weather was not that great, but it would get worse.
We headed down the Great Ouse towards Denver Sluice, On the way we noticed they were cutting the grass on the bank, as well as a tractor with an arm mounted flail there was a rather smart forward mounted flail cutter doing the less inclined bits.

 

As we passed the mouth of the River Wissey we decided to go up there for a bit. It was not long after this that it started to rain and turn several degrees cooler. We pushed on up the river a short way past the village of Hilgay until the river widened enough for us to turn, coming back down stream was much faster. Once back on the Gt. Ouse we turned right and continued down to Denver Sluice. By now the rain had stopped and the sun was showing its face again which put a rainbow over the river. Unfortunately they don’t photograph very well unless the sky is quite dark.

What ever those floating wire basket things are that I have photo'd in the past this one has made a good bid for freedom and I expect he will soon be down by the sluice to join the Floating Pennywort.

We stopped at the services at Denver Sluice to empty the toilet tank and fill the fresh water tank before going back upstream about a half a mile to see Graham on Matilda Rose for a cup of tea and a chat. About half three we said goodbye and moved to the EA moorings by the Jenyns Arms for the night, from here its only a short hop to the lock moorings to lock back down to the tidal Gt. Ouse in the morning and back in to the Middle Level at Salters Lode.