Swam Wicken Fen to Upware!

[jack]

Another mini-adventure, I swam along Wicken Lode! I cycled to Wicken Fen, swam to Upware for pub lunch, and swam back along Burwell Lode!

3mi swimming, plus 22mi cycling. That's by far the furthest I've swum, the only time I did more than 1mi before was the Slow Swim and Picnic. It was tiring by the end but felt very good. Very achy this morning!
When I swam along Grantchester Meadows in sunny weather people thought I was bold and interesting, but this time I met a boat tour who said, they'd never seen anything like it before, and I think I crossed over into being weird...

The swimming was mixed. It's never as glorious when it's not sunny, but the water was as nice as always in summer. Travelling down a narrow channel in the reads feels magical, like your own private trail. And you know that the footpath is just over the reeds if you need it. And the weeds never tangle. But there is a lot of mud and weeds/reeds below the water, and some stretches nothing much to see but endless reeds.

Photos on facebook or instagram: https://www.facebook.com/jack.vickeridge/posts/pfbid02nGcRCxShNyy28ikJ6cnjwKS8rcfVjcbkHUm4ZkqJwfEdScW6x49FT9VWWwmRDVBel

Comments

[jack]

I met a couple of swans making a classic heart-shape with their necks and stayed well back, but ended up having to follow them for all the last mile 🙂

[jack]

This ended up following in the swimsteps of www.imogensriverswims.co.uk and Roger Deakin's famous Waterlog. People told me to read it, now I actually should

[jack]

It seems that wicken lode IS open to boats, so I think I'm not disturbing the wildlife. Some of the lakes nearby definitely look like "no humans", I'm not sure about all of them.

[jack]

There seems to be some sort of gap where people expect bathing on Grantchester meadows in hot weather, people expect triathletes to exist, but people don't expect any intermediate amount of swimming

[sfred]

Wow!

[blue_mai]

This!