Saturday 30 March 2013 Prickwillow

Last night I forgot to mention the DesRes that has been erected for the bats on the side of Well Creek. I am guessing this was put up by the MLC as they do a lot for wildlife, Otter Holts with piped TV, owl boxes at every pumping station and some with bat boxes as well, but this is the biggest bat box I have seen.
We woke this morning to bright sunshine, I looked out and the icing sugar fairy had been out scattering sugar on the cut.

As we sit here waiting for the tide I walked gown to the lock to peep at the river, it was well up with a good half an hour to go before high tide so it will be well on the way down before we can get out, probably 6 foot or so. You can just see the top of the handrails on the concrete bank edge.

We finally cleared Salter’s Lode at but as you can see by the clearance above the boat we couldn’t have got out any sooner, even so we waited an hour and a quarter for the level to subside. Needless to say as soon as we pushed off to enter the lock it started to snow, however once out on the river it was like a spring day with the cold breeze behind us. We met a boat coming down the river who was heading for Salter’s Lode so the lock was sitting open ready for him. You can see the height  of those handrails nowThanks to the dredging work that has been carried out recently we were able to sail straight into Denver lock. With so much water in the river there is no sign of the sandbank so I hope the 3 Fox’s Narrowboats behind us get in OK, last year one of them was on the bank 3 trips in a row and the steering skill of a couple of them coming along Well Creek left something to be desired.

Once on the none tidal Ouse we made our way to the River Lark, on the way we passed a couple of fishermen getting set up at Little Port. We made our way up the Lark to moor for the night at Prickwillow by the pumping museum.