Hemmingford to Godmanchester

Hartford Church

On Friday morning at 6am we had left the moorings at Hemmingford Grey and headed off towards Huntingdon and Godmanchester passing the village of Hartford with its delightful church located right on the river bank.

Here we are approaching Huntingdon town bridge.  The town moorings are on the right hand bank going up stream but they are too close to a road to appeal to us so we continued on under the 14thC bridge towards Godmanchester.

Immediately after passing under the medieval town bridge you are faced with the concrete span of the A14 crossing the river.  I have driven across this bridge hundreds and hundreds of times in a previous life and not once have I diverted into Huntingdon or Godmanchester - how life changes..

We found ourselves a mooring as soon as we got through the Godmanchester lock for on the lock island is a Environment Agency mooring and Caxton just fitted!  Here we settled for the weekend, which proved to be a scorcher, and watched the frenetic lock activity as several hundred plastic cruisers of all shapes and sizes (and 'pockets'/£) went about their weekend cruising.

The Chinese Bridge in Godmanchester

Here is a wasted opportunity - the basin in Godmanchester.  A week's dredging and some pontoons would make this great mooring, generating significant tourist income for the town.

Port Holme meadow.  Immediately accessible from the lock this is claimed to be the largest meadow in England at 104 hectares.  They were just completing the hay harvest last weekend, conditions being perfect for harvesting.  There are public rights of way across and around this meadow so it was very useful for exercising the two dogs.

We also took full advantage of this solitary mooring and the good weather by scrubbing down Caxton's roof..

and enjoying a relax with a beer or two

Monday morning, 06.30 and we leave our weekend mooring and head off again.  the mooring is just to the right of the lock in the channel that leads up into Godmanchester.