Ferry Meadows Caravan & Motorhome Club Site, Peterborough, Cambridgeshire

Our last day was spent “mopping up” all that Peterborough has to offer the likes of us. We drove into the city and parked the south side of the bridge where the fees are fairer, and walked up into the town, a little later than we had been yesterday. We sought the library on the northern edge of the commercial centre of the town to have some printing done. Here, as has been the case several times this year and once last year, one needs to join the library or pay a special visitor’s fee thus allowing use of the computers, so in turn documents saved to a USB can be printed off, today at a cost of 20p per page plus the “joining fee”. It does not pay to do the maths (today our eight pages cost the equivalent of $4.80) but operating business on any scale from overseas has its penalties.

We were inside the cathedral doors by 11.30am when our guide, middle aged Mansell, a man with a mind like a steel trap and a passionate interest in ecclesiastic architecture, met our little party, all from DownUnder; three Australians, or four if I count my naturalised husband and myself from New Zealand. We spent more than two hours traipsing around ways passed yesterday but seeing everything from a fresh perspective, with the main emphasis on the architecture as you would expect. This was all too much for the one Australian on her own who disappeared somewhere along the way.

We emerged with growling bellies and found a spot in the sunshine in Cathedral Square to dine while watching the passing populace, so varied and entertaining. We then returned to the Cathedral to find our way to the cloisters unvisited until then. These turned out to be quite disappointing and I realised the pictures I had seen had all been mock-ups.

From here we made our way down to the River Nene and wandered along the esplanade, which according to the guide book has hosted Olly Muirs, JLS and McBusted, the names familiar but not their “work”. Last year Bryan Adams entertained 10,000 down here, these facts quite baffling when I viewed the scruffy area; a few boats lined up along the littered bank. There are lovely weeping willows along the walkway, if one can ignore the rubbish underneath and the great flocks of swans, geese and ducks keen to be fed by anyone with a loaf of bread to spare, which are always a pleasure to see. Further up the rise, a fair is either readying itself for the weeks or days ahead, or else considering dismantling and moving on. Today the mass of caravans, steel and colour provided an ugly foreground to the massive cathedral beyond. Walking eastwards as we stepped around the piles of avian excrement, something the Council cannot be blamed for, we were saddened by the dereliction and wasteland on the south side of the river.

But we have enjoyed our time in Peterborough; perhaps when we return, the city fathers will have addressed the esplanade area which has so much potential.

Tomorrow we will head back to our base in Suffolk, although will be giving the camp at Onehouse a miss; we decided we were fed up with the substandard bathroom facilities, something that could be so very easily dealt with. In the meantime, we are surrounded by the weekend clientele; this club site is popular indeed.