Middle Levels - Day #7

 Thursday May 22nd 2025

Peterborough to March

We left Peterborough after a quiet night parkside. It was grey, cloudy and frankly cold. Where was the warm sunshine we had been promised for our holiday.

The windows on the river side of the boat were covered with discarded husks of insects that had come up the side of the boat in nymph form, then emerged into their adult bodies and flown off. At least we don't have to clean them all off.

 

Having allowed plenty of time, we arrived at Stanground lock 30 minutes early to find a boat just leaving the lock and so Tina waved us straight in. Five minutes and no hassle later, we were back onto Kings Dyke heading for Ashline lock in Whittlesea.

Brenda claims that this lock is a bu$$er when descending as the notice tells you to stay forward of the red line - which is so faint, you can hardly see it. Graham could see it because he wasn't wearing tinted glasses. A notice board near the lower lock landing states that the bottom gates should be left open, however there is nothing lockside to advise this, only that the lock should be left empty. Graham went back up and opened the gates before we left.

 

Our destination for the night was back at Fox's boatyard so that we could empty a lot of stuff into the car and go out for a curry at the Gurkha Spice restaurant in March. We were running early due to the timing at Stanground and so we stopped at another rural mooring near the Bevills leam junction f.or lunch. 

Graham set us off again, post lunch while Brenda had a snooze - making sarnies is very tiring apparently! We immediately passed over a Meridian signboard indicating that we had just transitioned from West to East. 

 

We arrived back at Fox's marina at 17:00. While arranging the loan of a gate key to allow us to drive into March, Graham was told that someone had driven into the side of the Gurkha Spice restaurant yesterday so they may be closed.

We packed and loaded the majority of our stuff into the car and then set off into March in search of somewhere to eat tonight.  As we drove into the centre of town, we spotted that it appeared to be open and so a quick U turn followed by parking in a layby allowed us to investigate. Yes! it was open and so we enjoyed a really good meal accompanied by a nice cool breeze coming through the hole on the front wall. It seems that a driver had suffered a heart attack whilst waiting at the junction opposite and had just driven across the road into the wall. The owners were busy trying to arrange repair quotes for the insurance.

 

We returned for our last night on Platinum Fox, an excellent holiday on new waters in a very comfortable boat that we felt at home on as soon as we started.