Holywell GOBA Moorings Friday 19 July 2013

Yesterday evening we followed the “Heron” trail around the pits. Not a walk I would recommend,  the first third is on a gravel road, the next a tarmac road and the final third across a quarry carpark. You did get the odd sighting of the lake but the most common sighting was dog muck.

When I went to the loo at 6 AM this morning we had a good list to Port, so I put my shorts on and loosened the mooring ropes and managed to slide us off the gravel edge, the water had dropped quite a bit overnight. I think this is due to Anglia Water drawing off about a couple of miles downstream. You can see how low it had dropped when we reached Offord.

We were on the move just before 8 AM and it was already 21°C, Diana wanted to have a look round Offord but the only mooring below the lock was taken, so the next port of call was Brampton Mill. We moored on the GOBA moorings and walked round for a look at the Mill and of course we had to check the inside as well. The menu was not as expensive as I expected and I must say they keep a very good drop of Doombar Beer.
Back on the boat and it was down to Godmanchester lock where we had to wait for the St Johns boat to come up.
Work is pushing on at this lock now they have the tree down. Not only is there a container on site but also a Portaloo. From talking to people it seems they are going to rebuild the wall that collapsed about 5 years ago and re instate the moorings. Our next stop was Houghton at the moorings of The Three Jolly Butchers. As it was moorings for patrons only we had to go and buy moor beer, they also had Doombar, but I think the Mill was better. We then wandered round the village, The Mill is a NT property so is only open a few days a week, today wasn’t one of them. The kids were having a great time bombing off the bridge, but they kept well clear of the boats. We wandered back to the boat and set off again. I like to moor right by the lock on the old lock landing which is right angles to the lock, the other one is too high and risks rubbing the cabin sides. As I approached a lad without looking behind him did a back flip into the water, Diana shouted, I went full astern and the lad climbed out. The did apologise to me and with him facing away from  the I didn’t expect him to jump, his friends couldn’t understand why he didn’t see us, but he was relaxed with his friends and not looking the right way.
While we were waiting for the lock 2 cruisers and a Narrowboat called Honesty came up who turned out to be a follower of this blog. It was nice to meet you both. There was already another Narrowboat waiting to go down but as they were a bit longer than us I went first and pulled into the layby, then a cruiser came along and we fitted him in at the back with his bows between us.

Both these boats pulled over at Hemingford Grey so we continued alone through the next lock. While we were waiting at St Ives lock another cruiser joined us, he offered to go first and tuck in the layby, but this one is about 65foot long so tons of room for me. I was in, line out and waiting before he had released his mooring lines, of course he didn’t have a key or windlass to hand, but Diana had done it all anyway, so once through he was away.

We planned to moor on the Green at Holywell and all was looking good, a cruiser departed as we were approaching, but by the time we got there a hire boat had slipped into the mooring, so we have dropped down to the GOBA moorings for the night.