Another lovely mooring and another sunny morning. We set off about 8.15.
There are a few houses along the river at Eaton Hastings, and we particularly liked this one with a lovely extension and a launch moored outside.
The first lock, Grafton, was on self service. It’s pretty, as are all the locks on the upper Thames.
Radcot lock has a cottage dating from 1986, rather than the much older houses the other locks have.
At Rushey Lock, Adrian went to work the lock and found a single hander waiting below for someone to help him through. It turned out there was also a very nice lady lock keeper on, who worked him up and then us down. The sharp bends in this area seem harder work going with the flow of the river; sometimes you feel the current catch the boat and try to push it into the bank. There are plenty of wartime pill boxes along the river too. Near Chimney there’s a nature reserve which has both a pill box and a bird hide.
We stopped above Shifford Lock for water, where the very fast tap filled the tank in no time. We also got a wash load going. Shifford Lock is the deepest up here, at just over 7ft.
After Newbridge, there were dozens of teenagers walking the Thames path with their camping gear on their backs. One group towards the back asked me how far it was the pub at Newbridge, and were totally dismayed when I said it was about a mile and a half! There are some houses with boat houses along this stretch, and a very class rowing boat emerged from one of them.
Northmoor Lock had a volunteer lock keeper on duty. We moored up at about 2pm on the moorings at Bablock Hythe. We decided not to go further because there are only a couple of moorings above Pinkhill Lock, and the ones on Eynsham meadows were full of what looked like pretty permanently moored boats when we came up the other day. It had clouded over as the day went on, and not long after we stopped there was a brief rain shower.
16 miles, 5 locks. (130 miles, 77 locks)
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