Walk 101 -- Moulton Marsh to Boston

Ages: Colin was 61 years and 352 days. Rosemary was 59 years and 129 days.
Weather: Hot and sunny – like Summer!
Location: Moulton Marsh to Boston.
Distance: 12 miles.
Total distance: 783 miles.
Terrain: Grassy river banks ’twixt marsh and fields – we never saw the sea!
Tide: Out.
Rivers to cross: No.36, the Welland at Fosdyke Bridge.
Ferries: None.
Piers: None.
Kissing gates: None.
Pubs: ‘The Ship’ at Fosdyke Bridge where we drank Bateman’s XB and a shandy.
‘English Heritage’ properties: None.
Ferris wheels: None.
Diversions: None.
How we got there and back: We were camping at Lutton, near Long Sutton. We drove – with bikes on the back of the car – from Lutton to Fosdyke Bridge. Then we followed lanes to the southern outskirts of Boston, doing our cycle route backwards so that it would be easier to remember. We were delighted to find that the exact route I had worked out from the map when at home was signposted all the way as ‘Cycle Route 1’. We parked at the back of an industrial estate near the river – there was absolutely no one about since it was Saturday. We cycled to Fosdyke Bridge, and agreed that this was the most pleasant part of the day – along little twisty lanes through tiny hamlets, completely flat and signposted all the way. After the bridge we decided to go on the river bank because it was a bridleway. It was a bit bumpy – especially the mole heaps! We chained our bikes to a fence in the Nature Reserve, and walked out to the sea wall.
At the end, we left the river bank and walked a mere fifty yards to our car. After drinking our tea, we drove back to Moulton Marsh to collect our bikes. Then we drove almost all the way back to Sutton Bridge to visit a ‘real ale’ pub which was in the Guide.
The next day, we packed up camp and returned home.

We started today’s trek by walking round ‘The Horseshoe’ nature reserve. Nothing of note to see in it, but we emerged on to the river bank which was covered in cowslips—it was really beautiful. We found a spot in the shade – for it suddenly seemed to be Summer – and had our lunch. A little further on we came upon a magnificent flowering bush — Spring has really sprung at last!
We walked along the river bank – dead straight – until we got to the pub at the bridge. When we came out of there, Colin started marching back the same side of the river – he had forgotten we hadn’t crossed the bridge! (‘Senior moment’ there.) Fosdyke Bridge was nothing to write home about, so we didn’t even bother to photograph it. We continued in a North-Easterly direction on the left river bank back to ‘The Wash’. Again, we never saw the sea all day. Marshes to the right of us, fenland ‘factory’ farming to the left of us. One word sums up today’s Walk—BORING!
Mind you, we did see quite a lot of wildlife along the way—lots of hares, a heron or two, Colin saw a short-eared owl, we saw peewits, pink-footed geese, shelducks, oystercatchers, mallards, tufted ducks, skylarks, swallows (is it really Summer, then?), partridges, a small tortoiseshell, small whites, peacock butterflies and a brimstone. We can’t complain, really. There were lots of people about, mostly walking their dogs, because it was Saturday. But it was just extended river bank until we met the next river—the Haven which leads into Boston. We crossed the Greenwich Meridian three times which left us in the Eastern Hemisphere once more, but we didn’t really notice it. Unlike yesterday, there were no ‘shortcuts’ across the inlets so we had to walk the full course as per the map.
We came to a T-junction where we met ‘The Haven’ and turned left towards Boston. We could have turned right, but that was a dead-end and we didn’t choose to walk it on the grounds that it would be just as boring as everything we had walked so far. (Additional rule no.2) We soon came across a field of shire horses with their foals. That was the best thing that had happened to us all day. They were gorgeous! Shire horses are often called ‘gentle giants’, and these didn’t seem to be at all aggressive even though we had to walk right through their fields. The foals were exceptionally lovely!
Ever since we had crossed Fosdyke Bridge, we had been on the ‘Macmillan Way’ – one of the myriad of waymarked footpaths which criss-cross our country in this day and age. Well, we passed a sewage works, a dump, a landfill site and an industrial estate—you smell it, they’d got it! Who was this Macmillan fellow, anyway? I declared that if anyone named such a Walk after me when I’m gone, I would regard it as an insult! (I later found out that the ‘Macmillan Way’ crosses the country from Dorset to Lincolnshire in memory of the Macmillan of cancer-care fame. I still maintain they could have found a pleasanter entry to Boston.) We crossed the Greenwich Meridian for the fifth time in two days, leaving us in the Western Hemisphere to enter Boston.
Over a stile, and at last the air was cleaner—no necessity to wrinkle the nose anymore. We passed several factories, and soon came upon the one where we had parked our car earlier.

That ended Walk no.101, we shall pick up Walk no.102 next time by the industrial estate south of Boston. After drinking our tea, we drove back to Moulton Marsh to collect our bikes. Then we drove almost all the way back to Sutton Bridge to visit a ‘real ale’ pub which was in the Guide, before returning to our campsite at Lutton.
The next day, we packed up camp and returned home.

Walk 100 -- Gedney Drove End to Moulton Marsh

Ages: Colin was 61 years and 351 days. Rosemary was 59 years and 128 days.

Weather: Sunny with a pleasant breeze – getting hot!

Location: Gedney Drove End to Moulton Marsh.Distance: 10½ miles.

Total distance: 771 miles.

Terrain: Grassy sea banks all the way, much of it alongside an RAF bombing range!

Tide: Going out.
Rivers to cross: None.

Ferries: None.

Piers: None.

Kissing gates: None.

Pubs: None.

‘English Heritage’ properties: None.

Ferris wheels: None.

Diversions: None, in fact we had a few short cuts!

How we got there and back: We were camping at Lutton, near Long Sutton. We drove – with bikes on the back of the car – from Lutton to Moulton Marsh where we parked in a Nature Reserve car park. We cycled to Gedney Drove End along back lanes and it was all blissfully flat – as everything is in the Fens. We chained our bikes to a post at the T junction, at the exact spot where we parked the car two days ago. But what a difference in the weather! Today it was sunny, warm and pleasant. We walked to the seawall along the footpath, which did not seem nearly so long and was not slippery.

At the end, we walked the short distance from the seawall to the car park whilst watching scenes of intensive farming in the adjacent field. After partaking of much-needed tea, we drove back to Gedney Drove End to collect our bikes, and thence to the campsite.

We were a little apprehensive about today’s Walk because the first half was across an RAF bombing range! The red flags were up, but the notices were a bit ambiguous. They didn’t say “Don’t walk!” or “Keep off!” and seemed to indicate that it was the marshes that were unsafe, not the seawall. So we decided to risk it—the alternative inland path would have extended our Walk by several miles. Jets were screaming overhead bombing two orange ships and other targets on the marshes, but nobody challenged us as we walked along. As we approached an observation tower we really thought we were going to cop it, but a jeep went zooming past on the adjacent private road and the driver just waved his hand in greeting. He then took down the next red flag, but didn’t bother with any more—we reckoned he was keen to get to the pub with his mates because it was Friday lunchtime! There was no more bombing after that. There was no one in the observation tower by the time we reached it, but a bomb disposal unit drove out to one of the targets on the marsh. We were well past it by then, and later on we heard some small explosions from that direction.
We saw a hare in one of the fields, which was exciting. We sat on a pillbox to eat the first half of our lunch, and then continued on to the end of the range. We breathed more easily then because we knew nobody was going to turn us off the seawall. We were also delighted to find that the seabank had been strengthened and straightened since the map we were using was last surveyed, and short cuts took a total of two miles off the distance we had to walk! At a car park we balanced across a narrow concrete wall—out of sheer bravado (or was it boredom? we could have walked along the bottom!)—and sat down to enjoy the second half of our lunch.
Shortly after that we saw two hares in a field sitting up looking at each other. Then we saw a BARN OWL! It was hunting in daylight, unusually, and seemed quite unconcerned about our presence. It flew (silently) right past us—a beautiful sighting! Colin was especially thrilled, and in a very buoyant mood.

In fact it was a very good day for wildlife—we saw small tortoiseshells, small whites and peacock butterflies, wheatears, redshanks, partridges, oystercatchers, shelducks, herons, geese, a swan, gulls, skylarks and a ‘thrush’s anvil’ surrounded by cracked snails! If it hadn’t been for all this interest, today’s Walk would have been one big yawn—Fenland fields to the left of us and green marshes to the right, no sign of the sea. When we got to the end of the Walk, we decided that the Wash is a washout! We also remarked that it would be nice to hear the waves again—it seemed a long time.
We were in sight of the ‘Horseshoe’ car park at the end of our Walk when we crossed the Greenwich Meridian from East to West. There was no indication on the path where it might be, so we worked out where we thought it was from the pattern of the drainage ditches and where they were drawn on the map in order to take the photo. We watched a bit of intensive Fenland farming in progress. Fields were being sown, sprayed and then covered in polythene—all by machine. It didn’t look very ‘organic’!

The Fens
(Extracted from a rather confusing leaflet we picked up)

The vast flat landscape of the Fens has a long and fascinating story. 10,000 years ago the land was dominated by forest. East Anglia was joined to Europe by dry land and her rivers were tributaries of the Rhine. As the Ice Age came to an end the forest was flooded, and the trees died and fell to form the rich peat soils which are cultivated today. Over the millennia the Fens have been wet and dry—forests grew in the dry periods and died in the wet periods. Huge iron-hard ancient bog oaks still lie in the soil and snag unwary ploughs. Thousands have been dug up and dragged to field edges; many can still be seen.
By the time the Romans invaded, the land was covered by ‘a hideous fen of huge bigness’. Banks were built to keep out the waters so the islands could be settled and cultivated. The Fens provided a good free living for those who could survive the marsh fevers and damp. Reeds, sedges, willows and turves were cut, fish were caught, and in Winter wildfowl were plentiful. The Fens provided rich grazing, but frequent unpredictable flooding made cultivation of the rich peat soil risky. An old Fen saying runs—‘The profit of willows will buy the owner a horse before that, by any other crop, he can pay for his saddle’.

Flocks of 1,000 and more geese foraged freely on the common land of the Fens. They were considered ‘the Fenman’s treasure’ as they bred readily and provided meat, eggs, feathers (everyone had a feather bed) and quills. The geese were plucked five times a year, and often birds could be seen raw with the plucking. In the Summer, when the wild ducks had moulted and were unable to fly, the Lincolnshire Fenmen would advance on the birds in a semi-circle of boats and drive them into funnel-shaped enclosures. The method was so destructive—three to four thousands ducks could be taken in one drive—that in 1534 a law was passed prohibiting driving from May to August – but the Fenmen ignored the law. Many items were traded, and the rivers provided the routes to coastal ports at King’s Lynn, Wisbech, Spalding and Boston.
Large scale drainage schemes started in the 1600s. Long straight cuts were dug by hand using barrows and shovels. The grandest scheme of all was Vermuyden’s plan for controlling the waters of the Great River Ouse. Eleven thousand men, mostly prisoners of war, dug two cuts, each twenty-one miles long and running from Earith to Denver. The scheme was financed by ‘Adventurers’ who were rewarded with parcels of the drained land to farm. The Fenmen’s livelihood was threatened and they violently opposed the schemes.
To keep the land dry windpumps were installed, later replaced by steam, then Diesel. Now the pumps are electric—increasingly powerful means of lifting the water ever higher from the farmland up into the drains and rivers. In 1842 it was decided to maintain a navigable height of water only in certain waterways on the Middle Level. The remaining channels would be run as low as possible to facilitate drainage. Thus the Mullicourt Aqueduct was constructed to carry the navigable Well Creek over the Main Drain. Fen lighters (small barges) depended on the Fens’ waterways remaining navigable.
In the 19^th century most of the Fenland was drained in theory but not in fact. Winter flooding was frequent and Summer flooding was regular. In 1778 farmers had to row through their orchards to gather the fruit from the trees. In 1799 many hundred acres of harvest were reaped by men in boats or standing up to their waists in water clipping off ears of corn wherever they peeped above the surface. In 1912 the harvest was again flooded near Ramsey, and in 1947 the worst ever floods engulfed houses up to roof level.

The success of the grand drainage schemes was short-lived. Deprived of water the peat shrunk—the new peat farmland could drop by the height of a man in the life of a man, then be drowned once more. The more efficient the drainage project, the more effectively the peat dried out and the greater the resulting problems. This was why water had to be lifted ever higher to reach the sea. Much of the Fens in the present day is below sea level, and if it wasn’t for the action of the many pumps it would be a disaster area. The rivers, in the dead straight channels, are usually higher than the surrounding countryside. Keeping up the sea walls and the river banks is of paramount importance. Shrinkage affects the roads which are often bumpy—we feel sure it was the bumpy road between Isleham and Ely which broke our car suspension last year, causing our bike rack to break at the end of Walk 71.

That ended Walk no.100, we shall pick up Walk no.101 next time at the ‘Horseshoe’ car park on Moulton Marsh. After partaking of much-needed tea, we drove back to Gedney Drove End to collect our bikes, and thence to the campsite. Not far to drive today.

Walk 99 -- Wingland Marsh to Gedney Drove End

Ages: Colin was 61 years and 349 days. Rosemary was 59 years and 126 days.

Weather: Very grey. The rain held off until we passed the second lighthouse, then it was wet, windy and unpleasant.

Location: Wingland Marsh to Gedney Drove End.

Distance: 9½ miles.

Total distance: 760½ miles.

Terrain: Grassy river and sea banks all the way.

Tide: Going out.

Rivers to cross: No.35, the Nene at Sutton Bridge.

Ferries: None.

Piers: None.

Kissing gates: No.89 by the second lighthouse.

Pubs: None.

‘English Heritage’ properties: None.

Ferris wheels: None.

Diversions: None.

How we got there and back: We were camping at Lutton, near Long Sutton. We drove – with bikes on the back of the car – from Lutton to Gedney Drove End, and then out of the hamlet to a T-junction of farm lanes which was the nearest point we could get to the sea wall. We cycled to Sutton Bridge against the wind which was very hard. Over the bridge, we cycled the final three miles to Wingland Marsh with the wind behind us – bliss! We chained our bikes to a rail in full view of the road, not in the ‘heap-of-ashes’ car park!

At the end, we were wet and miserable. Because of that, the footpath which led from the sea wall to our car seemed interminably long, though it was only a quarter of a mile. The rain stopped momentarily, so we were able to drink our tea with some degree of comfort. Then we drove back to Wingland Marsh to collect our bikes, and back to the campsite. There it poured for about twenty minutes, making puddles all over the field. Our tent remained completely watertight, definitely the best tent we have ever bought! Later, there was a full rainbow.

We started walking South beside the river, but we were soon forced on to the road (not busy) by a fence. We stopped to look at some ploughs decorating the verge of a driveway to a farm, and also admired the bountiful pink blossom on their trees. There were some cows with calves by the river—hence the fence—but altogether it was a pretty dull Walk down to the bridge. Opposite the port we were able to regain the river bank, and we managed to find a sheltered spot in the lee of the bridge to eat the first part of lunch.
In 1216 there was no bridge there—in fact the whole area was marsh and swamp with dangerous tidal streams running across it. However, a very famous man wished to cross. King John had a habit of upsetting people wherever he went, and in that year he wanted to get to Lincolnshire quickly because some barons in Norfolk were somewhat angry with him. He paused at Cross Keys, as the area by Sutton Bridge is known, and demanded a guide across the Wash. A sumptuous feast was provided for him while a guide was sought. When the man arrived, he urged haste because of the tides. But King John was far too important to listen to advice, and besides he hadn’t finished his dinner. At last they set off—several hundred people, even more horses and numerous coaches and carts loaded with baggage. It was a wild and windy night, the tide was coming in fast and they were – doomed! – doomed! (Sorry, I got a bit carried away there!) Anyway, they all fell in the bog. Many of the people and horses drowned, but King John managed to escape to safety by the skin of his teeth – or more probably the arrogant fool was rescued by some nameless underling who was cursed for his pains. Never mind the death and destruction – more importantly most of the baggage was lost including the crown jewels which, of course, no king worth his salt would ever travel without. King John got to Lincolnshire safely, but he was so distraught over the loss of his jewels that he died a couple of weeks later. The jewels have never been found.
Now the area where they fell into the mire has long since been drained as part of the Fens. We reckoned that it was somewhere about the field in which we were camping—a short distance away in a hamlet called Lutton. Unfortunately we didn’t come across any jewels when we banged in our tent pegs, but we sat by the river and decided to have a very careful look when we break camp in a few days time!
Sutton bridge is a unique swing bridge carrying the A17 across the River Nene. We had picked up a leaflet giving its history:
1640 Sutton Marsh (Wash) and Lutton Marsh embanked by Cornelius Vermuyden.
1746 Corporation of Guy’s Hospital purchased land at Sutton Wash for £37000
1814 Wm. Marrat described the settlement at Sutton Wash, “…most of the land belongs to Guy’s Hospital. Here there are about eighty houses, three inns, one Wash House for sea air and bathing. Merchants and shipowners reside here.”
1815 A bridge and embankment made at Fosdyke.
1821 The Ouse was bridged at Lynn, leaving Cross Keys Wash the one remaining obstacle for a direct route from Norfolk into Lincolnshire.
1826 Cross Keys Bridge and Embankment Act passed to construct an embankment from the Wash House to Walpole Cross Keys, the bridge to be built over a new outfall for the Nene.
1827 Nene Outfall Act passed, for a new outfall to replace the sand choked outfall at Gunthorpe Sluice which was causing problems for drainage and navigation.
1828 In August navvies began to dig the new outfall starting at Gunthorpe Sluice (end of Kinderley’s Cut). After almost two years, they reached Skate’s Corner. Here the two lighthouses were built to mark the river entrance from Tycho Wing’s Channel which took the waters of the Nene Outfall to deep water at Crab Hole.
1830 The bridge was built in the dry river bed. Like at Fosdyke Bridge, it was designed by Rennie. It was made of oak and had five spans, the centre one being of iron and lifted to allow the passage of ships.
1831 With the completion of the outfall, the navvies constructed the 1½mile embankment over Cross Keys Wash. According to reports, 900 men with horses and carts completed it in 26 weeks. On the 4^th July the Union Norwich to Newark Coach was the first vehicle to use the road built on top of the embankment. There was great rejoicing at the event, the direct route from Norfolk to Lincolnshire and the North had at last been achieved shortening the distance by 26miles. The Wash House became a coaching inn and renamed the Bridge Hotel.

1850 Robert Stephenson built an iron bridge to take the railway as well as the road.

The Cross Keys embankment made 15000acres of land safe from the sea. The area was named Wingland after Tycho Wing. The A17 now follows the disused railway line at the bottom of the embankment which is reputed to be haunted by the phantom horseman.

(That last bit was probably added to keep the tourists flooding in!) Talking of which, there weren’t many — tourists that is. On our campsite (one of the best we have ever camped in — cheap, but with a new centrally heated toilet / shower block with lovely free hot showers) there was just us and a man who was temporarily working nearby so he had parked his caravan there as an economic place to stay. One evening, on his way back from a shower, he stopped to ask us why on earth anyone would want to holiday in such a boring area as the Wash! We said we didn’t know, and explained about our Round-Britain-Walk. We added that we wouldn’t be staying again, once we had walked past Boston, despite the lovely campsite — the area held little of interest to us.
We walked across the bridge, it shook with the traffic. On the other side we came across an unusual road sign which read:
PLEASE SWITCH OFF

HEADLIGHTS WHEN

SHIPPING PASSING
We started walking North on the other side of the river, and passed an old Customs House. On the river bank were some mallard ducks, the males glistening in their breeding plumage—all except one. He was bald! We realised that he was being bullied by the others because every time he went anywhere near them they lunged at him. They had pecked all the green feathers off his head, poor thing. There was really nothing we could do to help him, we just felt rather sad at the competitiveness in this cruel world.

We had to walk through a small port next — we thought the ships we had seen leaving the Nene yesterday evening had loaded up there. We were informed that we were in a ‘No Smoking’ area — probably the first official non-smoking area on our Round-Britain-Walk so far! Port Sutton is a very young port — it was only established in the 1970s when we joined the European Union. It seemed to be timber, mostly, waiting on the dockside, but there were some metal girders. After the port we were on a track, which was much better than a road.
We saw lots of goldfinches in the hedgerow as we walked along. We hid behind a bush to get out of the wind, and ate the second part of our lunch — then it started to rain. So we donned wet-weather gear and carried on. We passed a man trying to teach a youth how to cut back the brambles, but he didn’t seem to have much idea. We wondered whether he was an apprentice or reluctantly doing Community Service. The weather seemed to brighten, and we were tempted to divest ourselves of our hot wet-weather gear. We paused at the second lighthouse to eat our chocolate, and ponder that we had been walking at least a couple of hours, covered over five miles and had got precisely nowhere! Only the thin River Nene separated us from our bikes—we could see them on the other bank.The rain set in, and the rest of the Walk along the exposed sea bank was nothing short of an endurance test. We were cold, damp and miserable. This didn’t stop the jets screaming overhead, as they had been all day. There were occasional flashes over the sea — or in the direction of the sea for we couldn’t see it. There were soggy fields to our left and boggy marsh to our right. Colin got very uncomfortable as his pad was soaked and there was simply no cover where he could change it. In the end, I told him to go down the seaward side of the bank — as there was no one about, even the jets had stopped — while I kept cavy. It is very embarrassing and uncomfortable for him, but at least he doesn’t have cancer anymore. At last we came to the stile which led to the T-junction of lanes where our car was parked.

That ended Walk no.99, we shall pick up Walk no.100 next time on the sea wall nearest to Gedney Drove End. We were very wet and miserable, and the footpath which led from the sea wall to our car seemed interminably long though it was only a quarter of a mile. The rain stopped momentarily, so we were able to drink our tea with some degree of comfort. We noted that the red flags were down further ahead, because we walk on to a range almost immediately at the start of the next Walk. We drove a bit further along to an observation tower to find out whether the public footpath is just inside or just outside the firing range, but all we found were notices warning us not to pick up anything off the marshes on pain of death. So we drove back to Wingland Marsh to collect our bikes, and back to the campsite.

Walk 98 -- King's Lynn to Wingland Marsh

Ages: Colin was 61 years and 348 days. Rosemary was 59 years and 125 days.
Weather: Sunny and pleasant – even a bit too hot! Cloudy later, and colder.
Location: King’s Lynn to Wingland Marsh.
Distance: 11 miles.
Total distance: 751 miles.
Terrain: Grassy sea bank all the way.
Tide: Going out – then in.
Rivers to cross: No.34, the Great Ouse at King’s Lynn.
Ferries: No.10 across the River Great Ouse at King’s Lynn; cost 50p each.
Piers: None.
Kissing gates: None.
Pubs: None.
‘English Heritage’ properties: None.
Ferris wheels: None.
Diversions: None.
How we got there and back: We came up the day before and camped at Lutton, near Long Sutton. We drove – with bikes on the back of the car – from Lutton to Wingland Marsh where we tentatively left our car in the Nature Reserve car park near a burnt-out car! We cycled to West Lynn where we chained our bikes to a rack in the ferry car park.
At the end, we found that there was just a pile of ash where the burnt-out car had been! Our car was unscathed (relief!) So we drank tea, drove back to West Lynn to pick up the bikes from the now empty car park, and returned to our campsite.


We pretended we had crossed on the ferry because it was easier that way. We were pleased to find a new visitor centre at the ferry car park with toilets that were open! We picked up a leaflet in which was the following history of the ferry between King’s Lynn and West Lynn:
We know there has been a ferry across the Great Ouse since at least 1285, when one Phillip Peyteuyn and his wife sold the ferry rights to John Ode of Bishop’s Lynn. The price was forty silver marks (£27.00 a huge sum of money for the day) plus an annual rent of one clove.
The ferry service was vital—not only to save the twelve mile detour through Wiggenhall St Germans but to avoid the rapacious Lord of Rising (now Castle Rising) who, around 1310, extracted ruinous tolls on travellers using that route.
The Trinity Guild of Powerful Merchants acquired the rights in 1392, their boat running from the south end of their quay (the common staithe) reached by Ferry Street beside the present Globe Hotel. By this time there were two and probably three services across the Great Ouse.
The Duke of Clarence, with his entire household and three hundred horsemen, took the ferry across the river in 1413, (they were on their way to stay at the Austin Friars, which stood in the modern Austin Street near St Nicholas Chapel), and Henry V followed some eight years later.
In 1649, after centuries in private ownership, the Corporation took over the rights; the first tenant John Bird paid a yearly rent to the Mayor of two “well fatted” swans. At this time the ferry became one of the town’s most profitable possessions.
In 1821, the new freebridge to the south of King’s Lynn reduced the overland journey to four miles. By the late 1880s the service has transferred to its present site in Ferry Lane.
The ferry steamer was rejected and an electric launch was tried and proved to be unreliable. A scheme to use pontoons hauled across by cable was rejected, rowing boats persisted until 1920, when two petrol driven motor boats were used. This caused the fare to be doubled from half to one (old) penny. This was a highly unpopular move, which necessitated stationing a policeman at the ferry steps to keep order.

In 1973 the ferry rights passed to the County Council. Ownership of the ferry rights confers not only operating rights but also an absolute legal duty to provide the service, a duty which the County Council found onerous. In 1989 there were fears of closure although it would have taken a Private Members’ Bill to achieve it. Since this time the ferry rights have been purchased by locally based companies in order to preserve this historic service – thus after 340 years, the ferry returned to private ownership.
We had great expectations of this Walk because it was labelled ‘The Peter Scott Walk’, but we were to be disappointed. We thought we were going to see flocks of birds, but we saw hardly any. We walked northwards beside the river to get back to the sea—or so we thought. The official path was behind a hedge, but we stayed by the river for as long as we could because the view was better, marginally. It was cool and breezy up there, but we didn’t mind as we were marching along. The tide was racing out, and there was only one craft on the river—a working-type speedboat. Eventually the path got too rough, so we had to go behind the hedge where we couldn’t even see the river, though the tedium was slightly relieved by the sight of several small tortoiseshell butterflies. We sat down and ate the first part of our lunch, shielded from the wind by the hedge.
The way opened out to the seabank, and we must have been beyond the mouth of the river because we couldn’t see it anymore. We couldn’t see the sea either—it just wasn’t there! Not a tsunami or anything drastic like that, just acres and acres of marshland to our right and acres and acres of intensively farmed fenland to our left, grassy seabank going down the middle. And that was our walk—eleven miles of excruciating boredom! We reckoned the tide hardly ever covered the marshland because it was so green. It seemed to stretch as far as the eye could see. Flat! Flat! Flat! Jet aircraft screamed over our heads time and time again, bombing targets further ahead—it wasn’t very peaceful. We did see an egret, some mallards, a yellow wagtail, some wheatears, redshanks, oystercatchers, geese, curlews and gulls—but they were few and far between and usually far away. We saw more aircraft than birds.
Our boredom was alleviated slightly by the sight of some strange lumps way out in the marsh. They looked like prehistoric burial mounds, but we knew they were no such thing because in prehistoric times this whole area would have been a swamp. We found out later that they were only of 1975 vintage, built as a study of freshwater tanks. The experiment failed miserably, the taxpayer picked up the bill and the mounds were taken over by seabirds!
Although we didn’t need to look at the map (there was only one path) we were watching it carefully because we wanted to know the exact spot where we stepped out of Norfolk and into Lincolnshire. We had to line it up with dykes, and came to the conclusion that a tiny white post in the grass at the bottom of the bank was the county boundary marker. So I took a silly photo of Colin taking a big step into the next county—the seventh on our trek.
We were almost at the end of our Walk when we met the first person—a local man out walking his dog. We stopped for a chat because we hadn’t seen anyone else in the last ten miles. He told us that he did the ‘Peter Scott Walk’ once, but never again because it was so boring. I don’t suppose we shall ever do it again—this trek has taken us to a lot of places we have never been to before, and taught us that many of them we shall never willingly visit again!
At last we reached the River Nene, and turned sharp left. Two lighthouses appeared, one on each side of the river, but a good hundred yards inland from the entrance. They are both follies, built as a show of exuberance when the Fens were drained and the river straightened. The one on our side of the river was once the home of Peter Scott (the famous naturalist and son of ‘Scott of the Antarctic’) when he was an impecunious young man. Apparently, when he was living there he discovered that drawing birds was more interesting than shooting them. He became passionate about their conservation, and eventually founded the Wildfowl Trust. We passed a blue plaque set into the wall, and ironwork over the garden gate told us that the building now belonged to the ‘Fenland Wildfowlers Association’—but we still didn’t see any birds!

That ended Walk no.98, we shall pick up Walk no.99 next time at Peter Scott’s ex-residence—the lighthouse (which is not really a lighthouse) on the east bank of the River Nene. We walked into the car park and found that there was just a pile of ash where a burnt-out car had been that morning! Our car was unscathed.While we were drinking tea, we heard a bit of a kafuffle on the river. The water had been racing in, and no less than three ships were leaving on the high tide. We drove back to West Lynn to pick up the bikes from the now empty car park, and returned to our campsite.