Sunday 29 March 2015

River rambling


Followed the A149/A47 across flint and chalk of North Norfolk, the flat, shrinking peats of the Fens, up over the saddleback past Peterborough and the medieval ridge and furrow, rolling down to the Nene and Welland, through Leicester and the red soils of the Soar Valley.

Normal for Norfolk...
 Not deep enough to trouble a Chelsea tractor, the Glaven at Letheringsett

Very good coffee, offered milk, no cream at the sometime haunt of the grey man, fond of peas and cricket.
Still flint and pantile territory where the Mill spans and bifurcates the Wensum at Sculthorpe and past the silent concrete of RAF Sculthorpe,  once home of the B52 in the coldest of  cold war, reputedly the only runway in Europe long enough to take a diverted Space Shuttle.


No time to stop over the wide, wildly driven grey River Great Ouse, along the North Brink and the lurching telegraph poles leaning into the shrinking, black peat of eons and the three towers of Thorney. Through Peterborough and almost immediately up and into the faces of a pair of red kite, hanging on the wind with their forked tails, like the Harrier's that used to up and over out of RAF Wittering.

Dip left off the arterial spine, with it's crawlerlanes and glimpsed spires nestling in the valley floor cut by time immemorial and the yet to be wide Welland.

This needs some investigation. .
 A litle less unexpected





5 comments:

  1. That needs some music BB, Thomas Tallis or Elgar. John

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  2. If I'm not mistaken this is the Welland at Duddington? It was good coarse fishing, chub, perch, roach and dace, Unfortunately it was taken over by a club (Gwash angling) who are focused on game fishing, so coarse fishing is no longer allowed.

    Last time I went by they hadnt taken down the signs from the previous tennants, or put their own up, so you could always plead ignorance!

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    Replies
    1. Yes Dan, Duddington. Looks a lovely bit of river. Like the look of it in Stamford too, saw a lot of chub and roach on a quick post lunch look in the town meadows a few years back.

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