Stop Lock Brandon Creek Mon 22 July 2013

This morning when we woke up we found summer had come back with bright sunshine.

Work is really moving on at the Pumping Museum with the shell of the new building up on a steel frame. I was surprised to find that the Swallows or Martins were still nesting round the back on the museum.

We got under way at quarter to eleven and as we passed Toms Hole farm moorings I was pleased to see the two cruisers still there, they didn’t go home to their marinas as soon as we passed yesterday afternoon.

By mid day it was getting warm so we decided to stop for a nice cool pint at The Swan, Littleport. But guess what, they don’t open on a Monday so it was a bottle of Badger instead. We saw a few boats about, but the most we saw was a swarm of EA weed cutting boats, three steaming along the river as if on a mission and two working at cutting out the fishing swims.

At The Ship we turned down the little Ouse passing our moorings. There was probably more flow on this river than any other we have been on in the passed couple of weeks. One of the houses on the river bank at Little Ouse now supports some interesting basket work. We went up river as far as the GOBA moorings at StopLock, which is rather a strange name as it is nowhere near the old staunch.
When we arrived at the moorings there were already two Narrowboats there so we just managed to get our stern on the official mooring area and the bows a bit upstream. The boater behind us saved me a lot of work by offering the use of his BBQ when he had finished cooking to save me lighting ours.