9.5 miles and 5 locks
After a reasonably early start - this is becoming a worrying habit - we made our way to Reading. It was a bit grey but otherwise all good. The river Kennet was behaving even through the narrow town centre, despite the previous night of rain.
 |
| Reading town centre |
Soon we were at the end of the K&A. We turned left (north-west) onto the Thames and stopped at reading Tesco's for supplies. The moorings were pretty full but a boat was leaving and we nipped in, finding that it was exactly the same place we had stopped on the way down.
 |
| The last K&A bridge - the Thames lies beyond. |
Caversham lock had a volunteer looking after it and it was a treat to just stay on the boat with our ropes. Although this lock always has traumatic memories of Jo injuring her back on our first Thames trip. Past the lock we went under this smart new footbridge and then were accosted from the bank by a boat asking for a tow across the river.
 |
| Add caption |
Apparently the boatyard (which is on an island) had diagnosed the fault in the kaput engine but would charge them £75 to tow them across the river to safe moorings where they could fix it themselves. Robin (of course) was happy to get involved and help (despite Jo's misgivings about messing about on the Thames). It all went well, however, and we towed the little boat across and went on our way again.
 |
| Harold as tugboat! |
At Mapledurham, the next lock, quite a queue developed to get in, but the lock-keeper was not fazed and squeezed us in!
 |
| The queue... |
 |
| In the lock! |
Above Mapledurham lock the British National Marathon Canoe Championships 2017 were taking place and it was carnage. The races were just finishing but there were still canoes everywhere!
We picked our way through the canoeists and came to the Pangbourne Meadows which we had identified as good mooring on the way down. We saw a spot and headed for it but were beaten there by a bit of Tupperware. However, after some tricky manouvering in the wind, the captain managed to get us moored on a straight bit that was just long enough for our Harold. It soon poured with rain but we were happy to have missed the worst of it and to have a secure mooring for tonight. We saw an adolescent grebe and his parents pottering about and watched the beginning of a rainbow develop over the river. We'll try for a mooring in Wallingford tomorrow.
 |
| Harold at Pangbourne Meadows |
No comments:
Post a Comment