Wednesday 25th June

We stayed in Upwell for the morning and went for a tour of the local church before leaving at lunchtime. The villagers are really friendly and were keen to fill us in on the local history.

Our next lock is Salter's Lode and you can only go through it once a day as we are leaving Well Creek and joining the River Ouse which is tidal at this point. We phoned the lock keeper and we should be able to go through at 11am tomorrow.

It was very windy but bright and sunny so we set off at a leisurely pace. The river is quite narrow in parts and we passed through the village of Outwell before hitting the Fens again and a large expanse of countryside. It is quite disconcerting as the road runs alongside the river for most of the way although the cars seemed to be travelling faster than us!!

We passed through another small village called Nordelph before reaching the lock at about 3 pm. We went for a walk and familiarised ourselves with the layout of the lock and Denver Sluice, which we have to negotiate before joining the non tidal Ouse.

Our trip through the Middle Level and Well Creek has been a pleasant surprise and not as boring as we had been led to believe. We think this is because we have taken our time and spoken to a few characters along the way.