One of the jobs of the captain is the planning of the night's stops. This is usually relatively easy, especially if you have travelled the route before. Planning the stops on the River Nene was completely different, I had never been there before, moorings and pubs are a lot fewer, and to find the two together even rarer. But after many hours of looking through the guides, maps and Google Earth, I had the four stops on the Nene worked out, the stops on the Middle Level and Great Ouse were easier.

Then came the sad news that Dave Powell's mother-in-law had died and Dave would be unable to be the driver for the first four days of the trip. Dave Stott agreed to stand in but was unable to do the first day, a Sunday, because of other commitments. So the four days on the Nene had now become three, as we still had to get to Stanground Sluice for our booked passage through on the Thursday morning. Back to the guides, maps and Google Earth. Eventually a plan emerged and Monday to Wednesday's stops were worked out.

Richard B and myself travelled to Billing on the Saturday, Dave S and Alan arrived on Sunday, and Susie on Monday morning. So with the crew all present we set off at 8 o'clock. Travelling on the river, with the flow, and negotiating the bends was totally different to the canals, and produced one or two unplanned events, but there was a lack of other boats around, so no-one noticed – except the crew!!.

For those that are unfamiliar with River Nene locks, the top end has a pair of mitre gates and paddles, the same as a wide canal lock, but the bottom end has a guillotine gate, which, whatever way you are travelling on the river, must always be left raised when you leave the lock. The majority of the guillotine gates are electrically operated but there are still a few that are manual and require a lot of turns of a large wheel to raise and lower the gate.

As we were travelling downstream our first job at the lock was to lower the gate and fill the lock. If you were on the canal you could send a member of the crew forward, on a bike if necessary, to get the lock ready for the boat's arrival, but as there is not always a path along the river we couldn't do this. Another use for Google Earth in the planning stage was to find out which side of the river the landing stages were for each lock, because often the lock was unsighted on the approach, but at least we knew which side to aim for.

The Tescos in Wellingborough was a necessary stopping point for provisions, and the moorings there looked to be very inviting, until we tried getting President alongside and we ran aground. Quite a lot of time was wasted here before we managed to get tied up.

The first night's stop was supposed to be on the moorings above Lower Ringstead lock, but it appeared to be all overgrown, I didn't want to risk upsetting anyone by mooring on the lock landing area, so we had to continue. There were also supposed to be more moorings along the next stretch of the river but we didn't find them either. As it was now turning into a long day, we decided to spend the night on the lock landing above Woodford Lock, tying up at 2030.

One of the advantages of the long day meant that the next one was shorter, so we didn't set off until 9am. As we were leaving Wadenhoe lock we had a message shouted at us from a passing boat, that we couldn't moor up in the weir stream above Ashton lock as planned, but we were to go on to Fotheringhay, but we didn't discover who the message was from. When we arrived at Ashton lock, there appeared to be a very suitable mooring at the start of the weir stream, so we ignored the message and moored as planned, at 1645. There followed a very nice evening in the local pub.

Wednesday was going to be a longer day again, so we set off at 0740. We passed through Fotheringhay at about 10am, nobody asked us where we were last night, so the source of the message remained a mystery, and still does. All the people around Wansford station and the Nene Valley Railway had something else to photograph as we passed by.

Tonight's stop was The Boathouse at Thorpe Meadows, just before Peterborough. It is reached by turning off the river and travelling about a quarter of a mile to a basin opposite the pub where the Environment Agency had installed moorings. I had already contacted the pub and was told that there wouldn't be any depth problems, and there weren't. We arrived at 1805. Not long after our arrival Dave P. arrived. Dave S stayed long enough to join us in the pub for the evening meal and then travelled home.

Thursday was the day through Stanground. After stopping in Peterborough to empty the Elsan and fill up with water, we arrived at Stanground. Kildare is OK for going through this lock in the normal way, but because of the draft of President, it had to go through backwards, so that the deepest part of the boat is in the deepest part of the lock, (when the lock was lengthened, the new bit was made deeper than the original). President was turned at the entrance to the lock and brought in backwards, we still found the bottom of the lock though and there had to be a couple of flushes to get her out. The boats were then breasted up, but facing in opposite directions, and the next mile was travelled like this to the next point where President could be turned again. Easily said, but the turning took over an hour to achieve because of the lack of depth.

The next point of interest was Briggate bend in Whittlesey. We were foiled in our attempt at getting round, again by lack of depth. Various phone calls to Tina (lock keeper at Stanground), to get more water fed through to raise the level, much pushing and pulling eventually saw us successfully round the bend and under the bridge. It had used up another 3 hours !!

At the planning stage, Fox Narrowboats was going to be the night's stop because we could be loading more coal for the journey, but the loading had been done by the previous crew, but we still intended to stop at Fox's. This all changed when Dave was having problems keeping up enough steam for our journey. We had to keep stopping to enable the pressure to rise again so that we could continue. The reason for this was some very clogged boiler tubes.

More phone calls, this time to Floods Ferry Marina to see if they had space for us overnight. They had, and they even said they would keep the kitchen open for us so that we could get something to eat. We were also allowed to plug into the electric to charge our batteries.

This change to our plans also affected the picking up of the next two crew members to join, namely Richard P and Martin. Martin, who is the assistant editor of Canal Boat magazine, was joining us for 24 hours to get 'the President experience' for an article for the magazine. After more phone calls (how did we manage before mobile phones?), they were both picked up at Angle Bridge.

The first job for Friday morning was the cleaning of the tubes. As part of the 'experience' Martin agreed to help with this very dirty job. Then it was away from our moorings at 11am, stopping in March for some more shopping and heading for the night's stop at Upwell.

Martin's 'experience' continued with spells in the engine room with Dave, and then steering the pair. He left us at Marmont Priory lock to cycle back to his car. The Well Creek Trust had obviously notified a lot of people of our trip because there were lots of them watching our progress. Lots of photos being taken, we were even being filmed by one person whilst he was driving along the road parallel to the waterway. Our arrival at the moorings in Upwell was delayed at the last bridge, when the looby on Kildare was too high to get under the bridge. When the pin was removed to allow the looby to be taken out, instead of taking it out, the looby dropped down inside the mast. Problem solved for now, but it did give a later crew something to do.

When we were supposed to be coming through Upwell on our way to the previous year's National at St Ives, it had been arranged with Dave Short of the Well Creek Trust that we would do the opening of the new stretch of moorings by Church Bridge. This was obviously cancelled when we didn't make the trip, also cancelled was the free meal in the pub, courtesy of Dave and the Trust.

Contact with Dave before this trip had resulted in the offer of a meal in the pub being repeated, but on our arrival at the moorings, Dave met us to say that the kitchen of the pub was closed for refurbishment, but the crew were welcome to join Dave and his wife, Sylvie, for a salad at their home after a drink in the pub. This offer was accepted.

After the drink, we all went to Sylvie and Dave's place, a short walk away. The sight of all the food on the table prompted me to think 'who else is coming?'. A very pleasant evening was then spent in their company.

Saturday started with very slow progress through the rest of Upwell and Outwell, at one point we were towed by a Volvo car, and if that hadn't worked there was also a tractor unit of an artic on standby, but the Volvo achieved the job. Then on to Salters Lode where we collected a gas cylinder from an Upwell resident who had offered to get a cylinder for us the previous night. Bob Crompton & Kath also joined us here for the trip to Denver.

Talks with Paul, the lock keeper at Salters Lode, resulted in the plan for getting through the lock. 70ft boats can either lock down onto the Great Ouse or wait for a level and then go through the lock with both gates open, they cannot lock up onto the river. It was decided that Kildare would be locked through first, then President, the boats would then be breasted up and we would head for Denver.

Unfortunately, the plan didn't work. Kildare went through OK and was tied up to wait for President, which was also then locked down. On trying to exit the lock it ran aground, so we had to wait for the incoming tide to raise the level. So that President could try and stay in the centre of the channel out of the lock, Kildare had to be moved further forward, out into the tidal stream. The flow then caught the front of Kildare and sent it across the exit from the lock. The lock keeper said we would have to let Kildare go otherwise President wouldn't get out onto the river. Kildare then drifted to the bank just upstream of the lock. President was brought out onto the river too fast and then ended up alongside Kildare but facing the wrong direction.

Rather than create a further spectacle for the people gathered at the lock, it was decided to travel to Denver the way we were, after all it had worked at Stanground. So we arrived at Denver with President providing the power, and being steered by Kildare – no problems. President then turned above Denver Sluice and we were on our way again. Bob and Kath also left us at this point for their journey back to Salters Lode and their car.

Moorings for the night were the EA moorings opposite the Black Horse at Littleport. The pub moorings were full of cruisers from a cruising club further up the Great Ouse.

Sunday, the final day, saw us setting off at 0850, turning left onto the River Lark to go to the Prickwillow Drainage Museum, where we were due to be on display for a few hours. Left here mid afternoon for the rest of the journey to the Cam Conservators depot at Waterbeach on the River Cam, where the boats would be left for a couple of days before the next crew took over.

Just a couple of points to add. The 4 page article written by Martin appeared in the September issue of Canal Boat, and the man doing the filming from his moving car and other places (Bill Smith) has subsequently put it all together onto a DVD. More details of this should appear elsewhere in 195.