To Reading and beyond

This is a second go at getting our blog up to date. Let's hope the software is kinder this time.

Let's start by showing some of the sights of Abingdon. This is the town hall (or in fact the county hall as it calls itself - whoever heard of the county of Abingdon?) When we've visited before we've been able to go up to the roof for views of the town and the river but it is not open at the moment.

Near St Helen's Church there are these ancient almshouses, some of which date back to the 1400s.

This bridge spans the River Ock as it joins the Thames. At one time it must have crossed the Wilts and Berks Canal which ran from Abingdon towards Swindon.

St Helen's Church is most unusual in being much wider than it is long. It has five parallel aisles. The church was not open when we visited but this external photo shows end windows of the five aisles.

On Saturday (8th August) we left Abingdon and this shows the tower St Helen's Church from the water.

Just a little further downstream from the River Ock mentioned above is the actual junction where the Wilts and Berks Canal left the Thames. In case you can't read it the blue sign says "Site of the original junction of the Wilts and Berks Canal with the River Thames".

Here we are passing the church at Clifton Hampden. Notice the folk in the river. We have been struck this time on the Thames by just how many people are now swimming, canoeing and paddleboarding. Of course, the warm weather might have something to do with it, but as a narrowboater you do have to keep an eye open for heads in the water!

Above Days Lock, near Dorchester, we moored in a spot where we have stayed before. The clump of trees on the hill in the background (to the left) is one of the two Wittenham Clumps, iron age forts on hills to the south of the river. Although we have moored here before, a farmer arrived around 7 pm and tried to persuade us to leave. Her curious grounds for this were that they did not have permission to have overnight moorers. It was too late to move and we left the following morning. The Thames is quite unfriendly to boaters with many, many 'No Mooring' signs.

Next to our mooring was a wartime 'pillbox' and this one was well used by sheep keeping out of the sun.

We liked these blue ceramic feet by the lock cottage.

In the afternoon we climbed the Wittenham Clumps which give a wonderful view over the surrounding countryside. In this photo you can see Little Wittenham Church and the river.

In this zoomed photo from the top of the hill you can just make out Leo's bow by the bush in front of a white cruiser and hordes of people playing in the river.

This is a woolly thistle. There were lots of them on the Clumps and most had a bee gathering nectar.

The second Clump we climbed is more obviously a hill fort with ramparts and ditches.

On Sunday we fled our forbidden mooring and came through Wallingford. This place has unfortunate memories for us as in 2012 we were stuck at Wallingford for 11 days when the Thames flooded. The towpath you can see between the boats was then well under water and barely navigable in wellies.

This is looking back from below Goring Lock with the road bridge, the weir to the left and the lock to the right.

We moored on Sunday at Beale Park and Helen's cousin, Christine, and her partner Keith came to visit us. Christine, who actually works at  Beale Park, found us some refreshing shade under trees and then we returned to Leo for tea and cakes (from Christine - many thanks!!)

On Monday we visited Beale Park and saw the animals. Here a meerkat on duty looks directly at the  camera.

Beale Park have recently added two zebras to their collection. Both are female so no little zebras for the moment but they are going to have a stallion.

These are short-clawed otters and the one in the pool was having a bit of an argument with the other two.

We saw these in the wild in Peru and grew rather fond of them. It is a capybara and they like wallowing in the water, which given the heat seems very sensible.

Living on a boat called Leo we are always on the lookout for lions and spotted these at Caversham Boat Services where we stopped for gas. We did ask whether we could put one on top of Leo but the assistant thought they might be a bit heavy to lift up there. Going through low bridges could also be a challenge.

We came down Caversham Lock and then moored for the handy Tesco to do a bit of shopping. The heat in Tesco's car park was like something in the tropics. Just a little further downstream we passed this unattractive junction where the River Kennet joins the Thames and leads to the Kennet and Avon Canal. But we went straight on this time.

Here we are approaching the bridge at Sonning.

Below Shiplake Lock we found a spot in the trees for some welcome shade before cooling off with our now usual afternoon swim in the river.

So that brings us down the river towards Henley. The next few days will take us gradually down to Teddington Lock where the Thames becomes tidal. We've booked our passage through the tidal lock off the Thames at Brentford for Monday or Tuesday next week so that will start our climb up the Grand Union Canal towards the Chilterns. Watch this space.