Bedford River Festival 2024

Today we had a trip to Bedford to meet up with Laura and Laurence (and William too) to visit the biennial Bedford River Festival. 

We went two years ago (see here) and had such a great day out we made sure to note it in our calendars to visit it again this year.

Here are a few photos from today.

We parked along the road from Laura and Laurence's, had a coffee, and, after William had arrived we all headed towards the river. You can see the full programme here, and here is a map...

We passed first through Russell Park where there was a stage, a funfair and several food stalls.

A skein of geese flew overhead.

Down at the river it was still fairly quiet. There was a one-way system of river crossings and not many were coming over from the other side (but see later).

You could hire paddle boards or kayaks to get on the river.

We stopped by the Community Stages in Mill Meadows for a while...

...to hear the Bedfordshire Woodwind Academy Flute Ensemble. BWAFE is an award-winning group of amateur flautists, bringing together piccolo, concert flute, alto, bass and contrabass.

On the river the jetbooters were having fun.

Laura and I had our lunch from this stall. There were so many food stalls to choose from! Yorkshire Pudding wraps were something I hadn't seen before.

William and Laura had some fresh fruit juice here. They crushed the sugar cane fresh in the machine on the right in the photo.

We carried on past the boathouses and town bridge...

...to St Mary's Gardens. No we didn't have a go at the axe-throwing.

But we did visit the petting zoo.

The heats for the dragon races were on.

Our favourite boat was "Whistle while we work" manned with paddling dwarves with white beards controlled by Snow White on the drum.

Over the bridge in the town centre we found the Bedford Festival of Motoring.

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William bought some baclava here, while I got some samosas.

A coffee stop at Maison le Vôtre.

The it was more cars...

...before heading for the Embankment.

We passed another music stage by the old brewery...

...before reaching the top of the castle mound and the centre of the Green Earth Village.

As we meandered along the embankment, we some more jetboot displays.

This looked like fun.

Heading back away from the river we passed the Sri Lankan High Commission stand where they had some teas for tasting. Read about their teas here.

We passed round the end of Russell Park to see the new crazy golf course. All the holes are based on local sights.

A great day out once more. Thank-you Laura and Laurence for leading us round. You can find more of my photos here on Flickr. We'll be back in 2026, I'm sure.