Sept 16th - Burwell to Ely

We left Burwell after breakfast and headed back down the lode.  It was bright and sunny first thing but there were clouds scudding over periodically and there was also a coolish breeze.  When the sun went behind a cloud it was positively chilly!  I didn’t actually go up on deck at all during the trip down the lode as I was trying to get yesterday’s blog posted. The signal last night was hopeless and I just couldn’t get it to download properly. 

When we arrived at Upware Lock I quickly changed out of my slippers (I got some new ones by the way, same as last year’s, which I completely wore out - but a darker colour – more practical!) and hopped off the boat to set the lock.  Once through the lock I got back on board and finally managed to get the blog, photos and current position uploaded – atlast! 

I hope you all appreciate the hard work I put into this blog!!

It wasn’t long before we were back in Ely and moored up once again at the Public Quay.  We had a spot of lunch then went for a walk into town. Our solar panels should be with us by tomorrow and Clive needed a few bits and pieces ready for fitting them so we had to find a hardware shop.  We found what we needed and then went to the Almonry Tea Rooms, which is a part of Ely Cathedral.  We had a coffee and a luscious cream tea (oh dear, my waistline!).  Then we went for awalk around the cathedral.

Ely Cathedral is absolutely amazing!  It is a really enormous building but it is very easy to see that it wasn’t all built in one go, there are different styles of architecture where bits have been added on and also signs of where some bits have obviously fallen down!  It is a mish mash of Norman, Early English, Decorated, Perpendicular and Post-Reformation architecture.  The present cathedral dates from 1081 but has two significant 14th century additions which look quite different to the rest of the building.  There have actually been religious establishments on this site dating back to 673 when St Etheldreda, after two unsuccessful marriages, became a nun(!) and founded a monastery here.  Later it became a Benedictine monastery. Whatever its history it really is a truly magnificent building as you can see from this photograph (which I obviously didn’t take!).

Ely Cathedral

After exploring the cathedral grounds we sauntered back to the boat and settled down for the evening with stew and dumplings for dinner!  Well it is beginning to feel rather autumnal and we just fancied a nice warming stew!

We had planned to only stay in Ely one night then head off to explore the River Lark, however all being well either Gareth or Vicki is going to deliver our new solar panels to us on Thursday afternoon so we are going to stay another night then head off on Friday morning.  We are getting quite excited at the prospect of having a new power source.  The solar panels will make quite a difference to our current energy situation (excuse the pun!) – there are many times when the power has gone off in the evening because we didn’t run the engine again to top up the batteries.  With the solar panels it will mean that the batteries will get an extra boost during the day if we aren’t cruising and of course first thing in the morning as soon as the sun rises.  

So nothing further to report just now.