Over half way up the Thames to Oxford

Since the last posting we have been steadily making progress up the Thames.  Apart from the weather being mostly fairly foul, the main difficulty has been the strength of the flow of the river against us because of the amount of rain that has fallen.  Today we met "Strong Stream" notices for the first time and navigating into the locks past the tremendous flow of water down the adjoining weirs has been a cause for some nail biting and gritting of teeth.

Here are a few highlights:

Windsor Castle from the river

Coming into Henley

 We ate out in Cookham last night which is a lovely village with an amazing number of eating places ranging from Thai to Chinese to English and an assortment of pubs.  The inhabitants must never eat at home!

We stayed one night near Dorney Lakes where the Olympic rowing events are to take place.  Security is clearly tightening up with new fencing and a police boat going up and down the river surveying the bottom (perhaps to ensure there are no terrorist mines in the river bed).  We've seen lots of baby water birds including Cootlets, Canada Geeselets and a swan on a nest lifted itself so that I could clearly see the 4 or 5 huge eggs within.

And today we passed the half way point to Oxford:

Temple lock above Marlow

So tonight it's Henley, tomorrow we should go through Reading and then on towards Oxford.