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.

Heading for Abingdon

 We are moored tonight nearly into Caversham and Reading so this was to have been the story of our travels down the Thames to here from Oxford. But unfortunately the software does not seem to be behaving itself so this only goes as far as Abingdon. Next instalment hopefully soon. The weather has been glorious, if a bit hotter than we would wish. Living in a steel box (albeit an insulated steel box) when the temperature outside is above 30 degrees each day gets a bit wearing. But the big advantage of cruising the Thames is having a swim every afternoon to cool down.

This is Osney Bridge coming through Oxford on Thursday (6th August). This low bridge is the reason that there are no huge cruisers on the Thames above this point.

Around Folly Island in Oxford you can pass either side. We had never been towards the right of the island before so here we are. It is much narrower than the main route and passes under a low arch of Folly Bridge. You then have to dodge the Salters Steamers that you can just see through the arch. The steamers are not running at the moment because of Covid.

Thursday evening we moored just before Sandford Lock. If you look closely at the sign on the post you might notice that it says "Private, No Mooring". The lock keeper at Osney Lock had told us to ignore this so we did and had no problems.

On Friday morning we shared Sandford Lock with another narrowboat called Leonora which seemed appropriate as we are Leo. At 8 foot 10 inches,Sandford is the deepest lock on the river above Teddington Lock.

We liked this sign by the lock at Abingdon. There was a second sign that "on leaving the lock make sure you pass to the left of the red floaty things". More or that in a minute.

So here is what happens when you pass the wrong side of the 'red floaty things' otherwise known as buoys. The cruiser in the picture has done just that and is rather firmly aground. We were moored just opposite with a grandstand view. First another cruiser tried to pull it off but failed. The narrowboat in the picture was more persistent and, with some expert maneuvering, succeeded. We could not help because we were facing the wrong way - the cruiser needed to be pulled off backwards.

This gives a better idea of how deep it is on the other side of the red buoys. These three swam across the navigable channel and then went paddling.

Return to Oxford

There is only one way from Lechlade by boat and that is back down the river to Oxford so this posting mainly covers new bits we've explored on our way downstream.

This is the only problem with mooring at Lechlade! A herd of cows share the field with the moored boats and they often get a tad too interested in the mooring ropes and anything they can chew on the boats. The strap of our cratch cover is no longer quite as neat and straight as it was!

On Saturday (1st August) we decided to go for a bike ride and passed this splendid forest of teasel plants.

We cycled to the Cotswold Water Park part of which was a nature reserve but most of it proved to be a housing development of posh and probably expensive but very ugly square houses round old gravel pits. After that the ride got better and this photo is in the village of Whelford. The river is the Coln which joins the Thames at Inglesham just above Lechlade.

The next village on our ride was Kempsford which has this intriguing church with a central tower.

This is the view inside the tower with lovely painting on the ceiling lit by the large windows.

Last time we came to Lechlade we hired a double canoe and followed the Thames upstream, fighting our way under and over fallen trees and other obstacles. We reached this bridge, Hannington Bridge, and then turned round. It's much easier by bike, though the wind was a bit lively against us on some stretches.

On our way back we visited Inglesham Church. This is now preserved by the Churches Conservation Charity and has some multilayered wall paintings, fine box pews and the bracket for an hour glass which was used to time the sermons.

On Sunday we had a bit of a lazy day doing two short walks and a bit of shopping in Lechlade. This view of Lechlade Church is taken from near St John's Lock which is the last one on the Thames at this end.

Shelley visited Lechlade in 1815 having rowed from Windsor with 3 others and wrote his 'Stanzas in a summer churchyard' here. This plaque records the fact and is displayed on the wall of the churchyard.

On Monday we left Lechlade but did not go far, mooring at Kelmscott where this photo was taken. Kelmscott Manor was bought by William Morris and he and friends were also rowers and used to row up here from London. William and Jane Morris did a lot of good works in the village and these houses were built by Jane. The plaque depicts William Morris in the garden of the manor.

From Kelmscott, after a good meal at the Plough, we walked to Buscot Park, a National Trust property, the house still being lived in by Lord Faringdon. The gardens were magnificent and included these reproductions of some of the terracotta warriors.

Buscot Park house is built right on the top of a hill and the gardens extend over a series of valleys giving splendid vistas like this one across a valley to mock waterfalls in the distance.

Here is the house which was not open to the public when we visited. you can see for miles over the Thames Valley and,when we returned to our boat we found we could see the top of the house from the back deck.

In the grounds is this so-called 'Rolling Bridge'. Again the public are not allowed to cross it but we understood that if you wish to cross you have first to pull the bridge towards you and then walk onto it, pulling it over to the other side.

These very large sycamore seeds rotate in the wind.

This was called the 'swing garden' and had four of these large swing seats around a central flower bed. There were lots of these focal points in the garden with paths connecting them all.

On Tuesday we carried on downstream, mooring at Northmoor Lock so that we could walk into the village of Appleton. We have been passing a lot of these brilliant yellow flowers lately and made use of the app on Ian's phone to identify them. They are Common Fleabane.

Appleton has some lovely old cottages.

Last night (Wednesday 5th August) we moored near Swinford Toll Bridge shown here and had a short walk as well as touching up paint on Leo in a very strong breeze. The red buoys mark shallows in the river. You have to remember to go to the left of these when going downstream.

We passed this decorated houseboat today close to where the Duke's Cut links the river with the Oxford Canal.

And just to the left here under the arched metal bridge is the Sheepwash Channel which also links to the Oxford Canal and is where we emerged onto the Thames just over a week ago.

So that seems a sensible point to stop. From here on we are on new ground (or should that be water?), at least for this year. So we'll talk about that in the next posting in a few days time.