Arriving in Lincoln.

Monday 5th August 2019 in Lincoln.
As we left Saxilby, it began to rain but luckily it was only a few showers. We passed a C&RT working party clearing vegetation from steps leading up to the road. They are in there somwhere! "Where's Wally"?

Hooray! The sun came out soon after. The long straight canal is representative of the Fossdyke down to Lincoln. The Romans, who built the navigation, tended to keep to straight lines.

There are many non-navigable "feeder" drains that flow into the navigation. None of them seemed to be flowing significantly.

The approach to the centre of Lincoln and the Brayford Pool is not the city's best face. There is a mile of (full) permanent moorings followed by about ten 48 hour visitors' moorings (again full). We went into the large basin but found that there are no visitors' mooring there at all, so turned round and went back out the way we came in.

We were able to squeeze in to an empty mooring space right next to the noisy road bridge, so we moored up and went in search of the Brayford Harbour Master's office to confirm our mooring in the marina for next week. As all the visitors' moorings are 48 hours, we decided to book MM in for two weeks paid mooring from Wednesday as there is no hope of staying on the free visitors' moorings for that length of time.

We set off on foot to explore the lower level of the city, having decided to save the Cathedral hill for tomorrow. However, the Cathedral, high on the hill, majestically dominates the skyline and can be seen for miles around. One can understand its spiritual significance to pilgrims, past and present.

The railway line runs right through the middle of the lower city with crossing gates for pedestrians and vehicles. A new bridge over the railway gave us a good view of the line. We heard a train approaching and were surprised to see this little train come round the corner. M thought that it looked from above like R's model railway!

Where the River Witham leaves Brayford Pool, it passes under an unusual bridge, known locally as the "Glory Hole". That is the way that we will go when we leave Lincoln for Boston.

We walked up the narrow steps next to the bridge and found ourselves in the middle of a very crowded pedestrian street that winds its way all the way up the hill to the Cathedral.

The Brayford waterfront was equally busy on this lovely sunny afternoon and full of restaurants, bars and shops - including a Wagamama (for M) and a Costa (for R).
However, M saw a sign saying "Monday fish and chip special", so we stopped there - at the Royal William IV pub on the waterfront. And jolly nice, it was too.

This "fountain" puzzled us as it seemed overly complex just to spray the locals with its wind-blown water in the saucers. It looked as if it ought to do something clever. It turned out that it does! It is actually a clock that turns full circle once an hour like a minute hand and then, on the hour, it chimes. Tomorrow, we will come back to see if it really does.

The marina is chock full of cabin cruisers as you can see. There are two pontoons for narrowboats at the far end, which we will pay to use. One cannot help thinking that the very scarce visitors' moorings probably significantly benefit the marina's turnover.

On returning to MM, we found that one visitor's space had opened up a bit further from the road bridge so we moved her a little further from the traffic noise.

Today: 5 miles, 0 locks and 1.8 hours.
Trip: 262 miles, 132 locks and 147.1 hours.