Jorvik – here we come

Wednesday 17^th May to Thursday 18^th May 2017

The prospect of rain is always an incentive for us to get going just that bit earlier, and given that we only had 5 miles and no locks to get through then it would be fairly easy – it’s at this point you always think “famous last words” but we actually did not have any problems cruising up to York.

Naburn Lock

and a panoramic shot

The cruise went well; it was not cold; the water was lovely and still; the river was wide; and the approach to York was just a bit special.

the ice-cream boat - which we managed to visit later on in the day

Coming into any new city is always a bit on the special side, but we had wanted to come to York by boat for quite a while now and this was one to mark off the list.

We were in need of topping up the water tank – everything was OK for the time being – so we looked and looked for the water point, found it, and found some signs in front of it saying that it was a private mooring point for the trip boat company – what sort of rubbish is that – you cannot get to the only water point.

It was only early anyway – about 9.00 – so we stopped there – tied up with just the centre-line – hooked up the hose – engine still going.

We were nearly finished when some little bloke, still with acne and a shirt with obligatory gold insignia from the trip-boat company asking were we aware that we couldn’t moor up there –to which I replied “Yes, can’t you see the hose connected up and the engine is still going” – he wanted to keep going on with the same line in a bit of a overbearing and condescending manner and I would not give ground as a result – I cannot tolerate people who want to be a smart a__e; so he got no leeway from me. (We saw later on - he was simply the guy who sells the tickets).

He left and we were finished soon after and moved off – all he needed to do was just to make sure that we knew and after we acknowledged it, he only had to say “Thanks” and all would have been fine – there my mini-rant over.

Moorings were readily available and we pulled in, tied up, everything sorted out and we were ready to head off to see York.

First stop? Anyone want to guess – no not Costa, but it was next door to the Tourist Information Centre to get the necessary info – and then it was time for coffee and read through the stuff that we had just received.

A free guided walking tour run by the council and volunteer guides would be leaving at 2:15pm – so something for the afternoon; we had been to York before and did not need to see the Minster, but a walk along the wall would be nice.

So we wandered around for an hour or so to re-familiarise ourselves with York and then we thought that we may as well go back to the boat – the main reason being that the earlier fore-cast of rain had now appeared and we didn’t need to continue walking.

Early afternoon and we ventured out – still raining, but the guided tour was enough of a lure to get us out – assembled at the nominated place and we were greeted by the volunteer guide.

Off we set – 8 people plus guide – around some of the historical areas of a historical city like York – it seemed to be a church-based, but then tell me place in the UK that would not be based on churches and religion.

It was a further insight into the history of York that we had not previously known about and whilst we lost 4 of the tourists along the way (2 from California and 2 from Florida), we enjoyed it and thanked our host for his time and knowledge.

Our walk back to the boat was via the train station where we had some tickets to pick up – by this stage the rain had long finished.

We did not do much for the rest of the day as by the time we got indoors, the rain had then started again.

When we moored in the basin at Stratford a few years back, we really loved the early evenings – around 6-7pm when the tourists had disappeared and the streets were practically deserted and we could see a bit more without rain and too many other people.

Next morning came along with some bright sunshine, a huge difference to the previous day; we decided that it would be perfect for a chance to do the walk around city walls – from what we could determine there is a great length still intact. 

In places the walkway is narrow and some places where there is no railing to prevent a decent sort of drop – where is the health and safety when you think it would be there.

 

Clifford Tower

We stopped off in places to look at other sites of interest and being such a lovely morning it was just so nice.

No comment

We had a couple of other places that we wanted to drop into on the return to the boat and take some well earned rest – this tourist business is wearing us out.

The Jorvik experience was somewhere that we wanted to visit and with a quieter day to the previous - schoolchildren-wise we decided we would strike. It has not long re-opened after an extensive update - there has been a mis-conception all along that the vikings were essentially thugs and raided the towns of east England mercilessly, but they actually settled in many areas and became part of the communities.

Just like invaders before and after

5 Miles

YTD:  442 miles (711 km), 222 Locks, 15 Tunnels, 9 Lift Bridges, 18 Swing Bridges

Total: 5074 Miles (8166 km), 3373 Locks, 139 Tunnels, 75 Lift Bridges, 190 Swing Bridges