The weather in the morning was very glum but as we wanted a paper and a few bits and pieces we decided to walk into Brandon. After all we had come this far we may as well see what was at the end of the line!
It seems such a shame that the built the lock so small as there are efforts to reopen the navigation all the way to Thetford. A route was surveyed in 2003 and four locks were required. I wonder if it will ever happen. The decision to build this small lock may come back to bite them. In 2008 the navigation was pushed 2.5 miles to Santon Downham bridge where there are GOBA moorings too.
These are the moorings at below Brandon Lock, just room for about one and a half narrow boats.
Victoria Avenue was planted to commemorate Queen Victoria's Jubilee and stretches for 3/4 mile from the town centre to St. Peter's Church. It makes a great route into town avoiding the traffic.
From Brandon Bridge looking back towards the lock you can see that it doesn't look like the river is over used. There are supposed to be some more EA moorings on the other side of the bridge behind me.
Brandon has been associated with flint knapping since the stone age. Grimes graves where the stone age people mined for flint 10' down in the earth and piles of bits of flint where they constructed tools by fling knapping. There is a pub called the flint Knapper. Fli by 1841ng was used in guns etc from about 1790 here. Even new buildings, like the Tesco Metro in the village give a nod to flint in their architecture. These old buildings show the material off very well. After about 1840 the main business of the town was the processing of rabbit skins from warrens in Thetford Forest. They were used in felt and hat making and by 1891 around 400 women were employed. The business continued up to WWI.
It wasn't raining as such but it was damp and was like walking through a cloud as it must have been almost 100% humidity. You got wet just being outside. As I stood on the back after getting back to the boat I just got wet despite no rain! No photos were taken other than this one of cows following me down the river.
Once we cleared Little Ouse River we continued north for a little until we moored up on a lonely GOBA mooring just north of the Denver Cruising Club. We had a surfeit of plastic that we had saved for my eco brick. This is when you get a plastic bottle and basically stuff plastic stuff that can't be recycled and stuff it in as tight as possible. These then do not breakdown and can therefore be used for building. This was a a full plastic bag of plastic bags, crisp packets etc all cut up and ready to push in a 2lt bottle.
It has to be packed in tightly so as the bottle doesn't deform when it has a load on it. when full it should weigh at least 1/3rd of the capacity. That is a 1 litre bottle should weigh at least 350 gms! For more information please see https://www.ecotricity.co.uk/news/news-archive/2019/what-is-an-ecobrick
All that plastic actually only fills the bottle this much, and the top part is not really compact yet!
2 comments:
Hi Tony,
I enjoy your blog because you two go places we won't and you tell me all about them so I don't have to go! Public service - well done, mate!
I am going to look up the link about the plastic in bottles and will see if it happens in NZ too. We avoid as much plastic as possible, but haven't yet found a way to go plastic free!
Mxx
Hi Both, I sounds like David is making a good recovery and slowly getting back to full participation. Smart move getting some underage labour in to help out. I hope they are enjoying it.
It does seem difficult to leave plastic out totally, but we should not demonise it as it is extremely useful for many things. Cutting it up and stuffing it in bottles is quite therapeutic, if you have the time.
Cheers for now, Tony and Helen.
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