By accident

22/6/2019

People comment that we must do a lot of research, planning our trip. Not true - I  consider us 'accidental travellers'.
We look at our much worn map of the navigable canals and rivers of the UK, and think, where haven't we been? The answer this year was the east of the country. Boring, flat, was my response, also involving tidal and/ or flowing rivers. Not my favourites. Off to the NE lies the Humber, SE the Wash. West the Bristol, Mersey, the Ribble estuary.

I've  been proved wrong about the east, boring bit - great cities like Lincoln, Newark,  riding the tides up the Tremt.

Cap'n  JJ, being of the masculine testosterone inspired persuasion, is attracted to dangerous coastal adventures. (Also uranium glass, another story - come see our piano feet in the mountains). Me being more cowardly custard prefers the inland waterways, both banks in view at all times.
Rivers mean weirs (the horror of the Thames near disaster a few years ago), or like the Ouse, large catchments- a little stream near cousin Michael's house in Yorkshire,  which we can jump over on a favourite walk, contributes its mite through larger streams, small rivers, to the mighty unpredictable Ouse at York - where we memorably had to decamp at 1.30 am one night, as dry York hosted a sudden swell of rain from the Dales.

Show the Cap'n an estuary, to be crossed to gain access to a canal, and he becomes immediately fascinated,  intent. I plead caution, let's engage a pilot. At Liverpool in 2017, late in autumn, the pilot who we consulted advised the weather was unpredictable, and our Mersey crossing should be postponed. I (could) kiss his feet.

In Lincoln, the Cap'n yearned to follow the R Witham to Boston, on the Wash. To cross said Wash (above Norfolk) one has to go out of sight of land, into the North Sea, so shallow is the vast bay of the Wash. No, nah, non, never! Fortunately our Oz visitors in Lincoln, needed depositing thoughtfully at a station, not stuck on a sand bar off the east coast.

And back to our accidental tourism...we've stumbled across a steam punk festival, followed a gay pride demo, found a Fairport Convention celebration..so much happens, and somehow we just encounter it.

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