Friday May 3, 2003 - The Launching of the Ongar

Well, the punt has been succesfully launched!

The guy who is building his own boat a couple of garages down from me knocked on the door at 9:30am, and we tied the punt to the trailer and drove down to the pond in Granchester. Sue arrived just in time to come along too, having stayed over with some friends the night before. It took about fifteen minutes to get the punt on the trailer, ten minuted to drive to Granchester and ten minutes to offload the punt onto the pond. And - the boat floats!

She's a bit light and skittish, and I was a bit nervous at first in case she broke up into pieces under me, but it looks like the boat building project has been a success. We punted through Granchester and the meadows, and even saw a kingfisher on the way.

Here’s a picture of Sue punting us from Grantchester through the fields into Cambridge. I’d just punted us two miles, but Sue forgot we had a camera with us so that wasn’t captured on film.

And here we are by the open air paddling pool, just past Paradise Gardens where the launch was going to take place originally. With the trailer it would have been too difficult to get around the roundabout and back to the junction, hence the change of launch destination. The punt is so light that it rises quite a bit when you stand on the back.

Here we are outside the Mill pond. We stopped for a pint of beer, as we’d been going for two hours at this point. The building in the background is Darwin College. The Mill is quite popular because it has this field outside it where you can sit with a drink and watch people messing about on the river.

The punt is so light that one person can pull it over the rollers (which are off to the left of the picture). For comparison - a Scudamore's punt usually takes three or four people.

The obligatory shot of punting on the backs, with Kings College chapel in the background. To the right is the Gibbs Building (named after the chemist who discovered Gibbs free energy), and to the right is the edge of Clare College. And no, I don't know why I have such a manic grin on my face.

An action shot of me punting past Trinity College, with the edge of the Wren Library visible.

And here I am standing in front of the St. John's College wedding cake building.

The Bridge of Sighs - another obligatory tourist shot.

At the Rat and Parrot we stopped off for another pint, and to chat to some of the river punt touts. Their punts are about 30% longer than mine, and about 30% less wide. My punt looks quite strange when you compare it with normal Cambridge punts. At this point Jon Whose-Surname-Must-Not-Be-Mentioned-On-The_Internet joined us.

Here Jon is punting us under the Elizabeth Way bridge. We valiantly resisted stopping at the Boathouse or the Fort St. George pubs for more refreshments. The river is surprisingly shallow all the way along, but it starts getting a bit muddier here.

Here we are at the Pike and Eel (closed). Fortunately we'd stopped off for a pint at the Green Dragon a hundred yards earlier. This was the furthest down the river we went on this trip.

And then it was time to turn around and look for a mooring spot. This place looked good - there are plenty of other bigger and more expensive boats.

And finally here I am in the Fort St. George, sipping on a pint and waiting for sausages and mash to be delivered to my table. By now I had bad tendonitis in my right forearm. It still hurts three days on, so I think I overdid it a bit.

Here is a map of the route taken.