Wadenhoe to Peterborough

While we waited for the sluice to be repaired we enjoyed our stay at Wadenhoe, a remote village with thatched cottages and a church perched on a hill. 

Church Street, Wadenhoe

 The woods and meadows provide a good habitat for a variety of birds including red kites which soared majestically overhead.  We had an interesting chat with, in his words, 'the red kite man' who monitors these birds.  Back on board we saw a snake zig-zagging across the river and thankfully swimming passed our front deck drains.  

The snake made it's way to the bank in front of us

We enjoyed some walks across the meadows with Bess and Brinny playing chase on the way. 

Fun in the meadows

On Tuesday the broken sluice was repaired and surprisingly there were only 4 other boats waiting to go.  They set off but we stayed another day and then sailed on to Oundle.  The moorings were against a field where a herd of cows and their calves grazed contentedly.  It wasn't until we were crossing the field to go into town that we noticed the large bull; we gave him a wide berth but he didn't seem too concerned by our presence.  We walked up a street of stone cottages into the small market town.

Stone cottages on the way into Oundle

In contrast the centre of the town is dominated by the church and grand old public school buildings. 

One of the many public school buildings

We stopped for the bustling street market on Thursday and sailed to Fotheringhay the next day.  This small village has an interesting history, it's castle was the birthplace of Richard III and Mary Queen of Scots was executed there.  Earthworks are all that remain of the castle but the church has a small exhibition showing the history.  It also has an unusual painted pulpit donated by Edward IV. 

The painted pulpit

Fotheringhay still has a red telephone box but, as we've seen in other villages, it no longer has a phone.  The box now contains a defibrillator and a book swap.  

The phone box put to a new use

While we were enjoying the sun on the front deck we noticed a lot of blue damselflies.  Their metallic blue bodies glittered in the sun as they streamed passed and I was lucky to get a shot of one.

A Banded Agrion damselfly about to land on the dock leaf

We stopped 3 nights at Fotheringhay and sailed to Wansford on Bank Holiday Monday. The moorings are next to the Nene Valley Railway so we had a good view of the steam engine. 

The Nene Valley Railway was running the Teddy Express over the Bank Holiday weekend, we did think they could have picked a more traditional looking engine.

On Tuesday we sailed along our last stretch of the River Nene.  There were only 3 locks but our journey nearly came to a halt when I opened one of the control boxes to find it inhabited by a large spider.  Luckily it scurried back into it's web and stayed away from the buttons or we wouldn't have gone through the lock!  We sailed into Peterborough and took a mooring on the Embankment which is a short walk from the city centre.  


Our journey from Wadenhoe to Peterborough