Hubby and I walked the dog on the other side of the river last night for a change. It was a lovely evening, no need for coats or jumpers and we could get away with light footwear.
These things are deceptively comfortable, and don’t cost the earth to buy either!
There’s no direct link from our side so it meant walking up the road, going through the maintenance yard and across the metal bridge to what had been the original offices and the marina’s third basin.
Maggie wasn’t too happy about the bridge, even though it has a weight limit of twenty tons. It echoed under our feet and there were a few gaps where the sheets of metal met. With her nose to the ground, I suppose she could actually see through it to the water below.
When the laundry was out of commission and the water turned off due to a mains problem, we’d used the facilities in basin 3, but had never walked around or taken note of the surroundings.
This is an official picture of the river from google and would have been taken from basin 3.
The actual marina over there is less than half the size of ours, and there are more boats on the river itself. These are the big boys: wide beams, dutch barges and huge cruisers, including a Sunseeker, which to me looked like it was high out of the water at the front and dangerously low at the back (Poole being my home town we know where these are built and this is my own picture of part of the Sunseeker works on Poole Quay).
Hubby thought maybe the bilge wasn’t working and it was actually sinking. We’ve never seen anyone on it, and in all the time we’ve been here, don’t think it’s moved at all.
Maggie wasn’t interested in any of the rabbits as they scattered in our presence. They seem to be bigger and fatter on that side, whereas the ones over here are so laid back, they are practically sunbathing all day. By mutual agreement, they don’t run away and Maggie doesn’t chase them.
The other side is also used for storage, either boats out of the water for the winter or any other reason, and a few residents pay about £100 a year to keep their trailers over there for surplus possessions and equipment.
When we first arrived, we became friendly with a couple who had been aboard their Sea Otter for 8 years. They had a trailer over the way, and every day would be taking something back and retrieving something else, be it clothes, computer printers, deck chairs or crock pots for cooking dinner. They didn’t have a car so when they moved on, not only did they decide to have their boat trailered (google image) to their new destination rather than putter, they had to get someone to move their box trailer too.
We thought about having one, but opted for the Great Sort Out instead and basically if it’s not in the boat, in the car or we’re wearing it, we don’t have it. Having changed the car last year, that’s a good thing as we couldn’t tow anything now anyway!
We saw only 2 people and nodded hello, but heard a lot more and with it, loud music.
The noise wasn’t coming from the boating community though but one of the flats adjacent to the river. That’s one thing we’ve discovered about boaters, they are considerate not to disturb anyone with their radios, TVs or musical instruments, especially during the evening.
We could see our boat from the other side, the helm cover standing tall above the bank.
Looking at the sky, it was going to be a clear night, but rain had been forecast for the morning. Maggie did her business and we cleared up, then made our way home.
This picture was taken last year from the dog walk on our side.
pensitivity101 
Interesting to see the other side 🙂
It was, though to be honest, we prefer ours. However, for a pleasant walk, it was lovely, and more importantly safe for the dog off lead.