We were moored up for a week at the National site - the first few days with the boats which had been there for over a week as their owners beavered away getting the site ready. They had worked so hard that there was hardly anything for us to do till Iain took over harbour duties on the Wednesday. At long last we have managed to get a photo of Gamebird and Copperkins together! Although both boats have been at the National several times we have never managed to get them close to one another. On the morning we moved to our proper mooring, we did a slight detour to chat to Peter and Elaine on Fulbourne - P & E also have a share in Copperkins. As we chatted, Copperkins came round the corner and moored along side.. An excellent photo opportunity. Our mooring, although not far from the Festival site and on a nice quiet stretch, was across the other side of the river. To walk between the two took about 45 minutes and was through farmers fields. A chain ferry was provided and ran a two hours on and two hours off over the weekend. This meant that we had to plan our day a bit better and when it got cold when we were at the Festival, instead `of going back to the boat for more clothes, a visit to the Regatta site solved the problem, In the evening, a WRG bus brought us back BUT it had to be booked (and on at least one day it was fully booked by 10.30am) and on the first two evenings it left the site at 10pm. The last two nights it left at 11 which was better. However, I think the demand was underestimated as there were about 60 boats which had to use the ferry /bus.
However, we enjoyed the national and it was good to catch up with so many old friends as well as making new ones. We left the site at about 1pm on Monday and had a good run to Willington where we moored about 7pm. We locked for most of the way with another short boat and various longer boats and there was enough traffic they other way that we only had to close two sets of gates when we left locks. The highlight of the day was seeing a kingfisher as we approached Stenson and a family of 9 ducklings which looked less than a week old Tomorrow, Tuesday, might see us back at Kings Bromley where Gamebird will be put back on her trailer for the long slog home. Beale park next year?? Iain is working on me :-) Ann.
