A day when we’ve travelled further than intended, because of the lack of moorings. First thing this morning there was a mist over the river and a heavy dew. Boats started going past early, possibly to beat the time restrictions at Culham Lock. We started a wash load while we had breakfast, and set off about 8.15, with the sun trying to burn off the mist.
As we approached Day’s Lock the Wittenham Clumps are visible, today rising above the mist.
At Day’s Lock the lock keeper arrived as we were going in, and immediately took over operating the lock. The next reach goes through Shillingford, where Shillingford Court must be one of the most photographed houses on the river.
At Benson, we’d arranged to meet my colleague Julian, who lives nearby. We picked him up from a mini jetty near the Waterside Cafe, and took him through the lock.
We stopped at the far end of the lock landing below the lock and had a cup of tea, before he headed back to his building work, and we carried on through Wallingford.
There are plenty of lovely houses to look at along the river, but one appears to have been build using children’s building blocks.
Benson to Cleeve is the longest reach between locks on the river, and we stopped above the lock at the water point, to fill the tank. We had lunch at the same time. We then went down the lock onto the shortest reach between locks. At Goring Lock, there were five boats going down: two narrowboats, a canoe, a cruiser, and an electric boat. Below the lock is the famous glass cantilevered summer house.
There is no mooring at Beale Park any more, although some of the signs have been taken down, and one boat was moored there. At Whitchurch Lock we were joined by a couple of guys in a small rowing type boat with an outboard, who provided entertainment as they tried to get a rope round a bollard, and then almost fell in. We’d planned to stop at Pangbourne Meadows, but possibly because of the Beale Park situation there wasn’t a space to be had, and we had to carry on. We tried mooring on a bit of parkland at Mapledurham, but couldn’t get into the side. Some time was spent trying to get away after the third place we tried, as we’d stuck fast on the mud. We ended up going down the lock and carrying on the Caversham.
We’ve moored by a playground near Christchurch Bridge. It could hardly be more different from last night’s mooring.
24 miles, 6 locks. (173 miles, 90 locks)
