19th to 25th Aug – the Thames is a long river!
Monday Monday – what a grey and, frankly, chilly day. The sun did not really put in an appearance until late afternoon and even then pretty briefly, before it started raining. Not at all the day we had ordered! But last night’s mooring had been lovely and we got a really great view of the Strawberry Moon – although pics (my pics) just do not do it justice.
Every day I look at this river and and am reminded what a philistine I was in my younger days. I really did not enjoy rivers back then, but today I really appreciate the sheer beauty of the river. It is so beautiful and I am very happy to be cruising again. It was unplanned and I’m a little sorry, now, that we threw in the towel with the East Anglian Waterways, but we’ll be back some day.
We cruised on through Pangbourne, Goring, Moulsford and ended up in Wallingford for the night. We moored here for a while on our last trip along the Thames. Not a bad spot and it enabled us to take advantage of the handy Waitrose in town. It has a lovely bridge – illuminated at night – and a very attractive church (St. Peter’s) with a lovely spire and octagonal belfry. It’s built on the site of a previous church, which was destroyed in the Civil War (1642 to 1651) during the siege of Wallingford. Wallingford was a Royalist town but eventually fell to Parliament in 1646. Parliament “slighted” the Wallington Castle – which means they pretty much destroyed it so that it could not be used defensively again.
Tuesday was much brighter, which is sad for Paul as he was back at work today. But we three enjoyed the sunshine. And then the wind got up and a large black cloud appeared. Without any further warning, it pelted down and one strong gust saw my prized Vetus umbrella turn inside out! I’ve never seen an umbrella so totally destroyed by one gust like that! It was pretty funny and Paul R gladly posed for a dramatic photo!
We pulled over for lunch after Clifton Lock and had a bit of a break in the sun (well 3 of us did) and then it was time to press on. Sue and Paul are leaving us today, sadly, and we have a rendezvous spot in our sights. As we cruised on, there was another freak gust that came from nowhere – luckily, no umbrella up at this point! But it was quite weird!
I saw a notice at one of the locks and it reminded me of the days before mobile phones when, if you needed to contact someone in an emergency, you would phone British Waterways and they would put a message up at a lock in the hope that the intended person would see it. A bit haphazard but it kinda worked. I also remember having to find a handy phone box so that you could ring home. Seems mad these days, but we survived and were perhaps the better for being out of contact!
We arrived at the agreed meeting spot around 16:30 and settled down to wait. Dominic, their son, who dropped them off last week, was coming to pick them up, but not until after he had attended football practice, so we are not expecting him until maybe 9-ish? We are now around 82 miles from Teddington, by the way.
Dom arrived at around 9:30 and we bid our buddies a hasty farewell. It seemed very quiet with half the number of dogs and adults and had definitely gone too quickly. That said, I was really looking forward to our bed.
Even though it was pretty dark, we decided we’d go through the lock (Culham) to save time, as we had an early start planned for Wednesday. Paul had his head torch and I used the tunnel light. It’s a big lock and took a while to fill, but we were soon tied up with a coffee in hand and our feet up.
The alarm rang way too early for my liking but we were up and under way by 06:15. We were aiming for Abingdon today, not very far but it was distinctly nippy! Autumn is definitely making its presence known, sadly.
We cruised down to Abingdon and found a nice spot on the bank at Rye Farm Meadow – right at the end. It’s a great spot and you can stay for free for 3 nights – almost unheard of for the Thames! We were tied up with breakfast on the go by 8;15. It took me all day to warm up, I reckon. I just could not get to a comfy temp.
As Paul was working, we decided to try a Deliveroo grocery delivery from the Waitrose in town. An excellent service that topped us up until the weekend and was delivered within 45 minutes. Quite incredible.
We had a quiet night and were planning to move the boat up through Abingdon Lock and along to Sandford Lock at around lunchtime. We’d need to empty stuff and fill stuff up at the handy facilities above Abingdon Lock. Things were getting a bit desperate to be honest. Facilities seems to be more scarce than on our last visit 3 years ago.
As a matter of course, we carry a spare base for our toilet but have never needed to use it until this trip. We have also never got so low on water – several locks in a row only for filling small containers, not hoses. Nightmare. We have been eking our water out, washing instead of showering and so forth. It was a relief to top up and finally take a lovely shower today!
But there was the cruise to Sandford first. Its about 5 miles and I did it solo as Paul was working. I put a coat on for the first time for weeks. It was grey and chilly and sprinkling in the air for most of the way. We had been warned that Sandford Lock was slow – it actually takes 25 minutes to empty! And of course, Mother Nature took that opportunity – just as we finally entered the lock – to empty a week’s worth of rain on us in 10 minutes! We were both properly soaked by the time we moored in our booked space.
Sandford Lock is one of the few that has an electric hook-up point and – as we have not had a full battery array since we left Islington, bound for Limehouse, a few weeks ago, we thought we’d grab some. We’d restore the SOC to it’s correct calculation and have a nice full battery bank for a while.
We also decided to go to the pub – the King’s Arms – for dinner. We took the Cribbage Board with us and played a few hands while we waited for dinner. Was it worth the wait? Well – let’s just say that it was no worse than any other pub meal we’ve had of late. And a whole lot better than having to cook and wash up!
It was a bit wet and windy overnight but by the time we set off on Friday morning, the sun was shining, although still pretty breezy. We are re-joining the canal system at Oxford and have decided to stay on the Thames until Dukes Cut, rather than enter at Isis Lock.
It was a very pleasant cruise up through Iffley and Osney Locks, past Sheepwash Junction (which leads to the Oxford Canal via Isis Lock) and then up through Port Meadow, where there are often cows in the water. It’s always a lovely sight, but sadly today they were up the other end of the vast field that leads down to the Thames.
We stopped at The Perch – a lovely pub. The last time we visited was with Kate & Paul Hansford and her late Dad, back in 2014. We’d had a great day out on a day boat on the Oxford Canal, from Thrupp, and we all had dinner there before parting company.
After we’d had a drink and a bit of a pause, we set off again towards Godstow Lock and, as if to make a liar of me, we saw that the cows had now come down and several were paddling. I was taking a couple of photos, when suddenly we realised we had gone aground. Suddenly. Badly.
We did all the usual things – reversing off, rocking, shifting the weight to the bow and using the boat pole but nothing shifted us, and I was beginning to wonder if we might have to seek assistance when a boat came into view. As that happened, I suggested that Paul try poling from the side of the boat as we seemed to be aground all the way from the bow to midships. While he was doing that, I was reversing and bow thrusting and suddenly we started to make progress. By the time the boat drew up alongside, prepared to help, we were afloat again. With some relief!
We came up through Godstow lock with them and passed the Abbey ruins. We noticed that the navigation sign on Godstow Bridge, which is narrow and awkwardly on the skew, was virtually obscured by foliage. And as you come through the bridge, the exit is very overgrown. Had it been an easier spot, we would have got our gardening equipment out and fixed it, but we couldn’t without the possibility of damaging our boat. We thus reported it, with photos, to the Thames Motor Boat Association, who will report it to the EA – who don’t make reporting very easy.
We pressed on, vaguely looking for a nice spot to moor, which we finally found just before King’s Lock. A lovely spot with views of the Oxfordshire countryside and pretty solitary, to boot. This last bit of the Thames before Kings Lock is very wiggly – redolent of the delightful Upper Thames, where very often you can see yourself coming, it’s so snakey.
We had looked at the weather for Saturday and found it wanting. Wanting to rain, that is. And boy did it rain. It poured, it teemed, it cascaded! We could not actually see the lovely wooded hills that had been our view yesterday. We had decided to stay put, at least initially, as we had no wish to get drenched and we have ample time to get to our next rendezvous in Banbury.
We only saw one boat on Saturday morning and they left the lock without closing the gates. Lazy and jolly bad form, rain or no rain. King’s Lock is the first manual, totally unpowered lock we have encountered this trip – and the last. I’m quite sad to be leaving the Thames and really wish we had time to go up to the head of the navigation in Lechlade, but we don’t so there’s no point in regrets.
Duke’s Cut is still home to numerous pretty ramshackle boats and Duke’s Lock is not fully functioning, but we made it onto the Oxford and our first narrow lock since May. A welcome sight! We cruised for a while in bright sunshine and then found a spot, just below Kidlington Green Lock to tie up. No sooner had we done so, than the skies opened again. Typical August BH weather. I really feel for all those campers at Reading and friends at Victorious. A festival in the rain is no fun – but particularly if you’re camping. The last festival soaking we got was at Cropredy a few years back – every square inch of us was soaked on that occasion.
We moored just below Kidlington Green Lock and witnessed a College Cruisers hire boat pick up something on their prop. Made a right noise and then the engine cut out. We helped them bring it into the side and controlled traffic while they went down the weed hatch. They managed to get it off, restarted their engine and off they went. That was the only excitement and we had an otherwise very peaceful night.
We set off on Sunday morning just before 10, stopped for a grocery pick-up at the Jolly Boatman and then again at Thrupp to empty and take on fluids. It was fine – sunny at times – but with a chilly breeze. We passed the very sad and dilapidated sight of the Rock of Gibraltar pub – so sad to see it it mouldering away. And sad to never again be able to boast that you’ve cruised from the Rock of Gibraltar to the Cape of Good Hope on your narrowboat. We finally stopped for the day at one of our favourite spots at Kirtlington Quarry.
As I said earlier, we have a rendezvous in Banbury on Friday. George, Beth and Uncle D are coming to visit and bringing Chester for his very first time on Old Nick. What a day that will be! We have another day’s full cruising tomorrow, as it’s a bank holiday and then it should be a very easy 3 days to cruise up to Banbury and arrive by Thursday evening.
| Period | Miles | Locks |
| 19th to 25th August | 45 | 18 |
| Cumulative | 339 | 259 |