Cruising the Thames

Not the best day to go cruising but Rachael and I were looking forward to cruising the Thames. We donned our wet weather gear as the rain fell lightly, it had been raining off and on overnight. It was our first time we would be on a genuine river rather than a 'tame ' river like the River Cherwell, that forms part of the Oxford Canal.

The night before I had prepared our newly purchased anchor, attaching the chain and rope, hoping to never have to use it. By leaving the Oxford Canal we had now exhausted Kevin's canal knowledge so I had prepared a basic cruising plan for the next six weeks, this was Day 1.

First stop was Osney Lock, no shortage of room in this lock! Time to part with our hard earned cash to cruise on the Thames. Using the Environment Agency's pricing structure, not sure which Einstein came up with it, we paid our £61 for seven days of cruising, expecting to be on the Thames for four days. I say Einstein, since three days was over £70, why? Anyway, two big boats and we didn't even come close to filling the lock.

Rachael thought having Lock Keepers was a shear luxury although she didn't get to just sit back and relax since on the Thames the boat needs to be held at two points, it's stern and bow ropes not just a centre rope. So with all the work done for us we left the lock a few pounds lighter but were off down the Thames.

Once off the canal the first thing you notice is the different boat traffic. Still cruising through Oxford we were negotiating punts, common for university cities, quite a few narrow boats since we were so close to the canal at this stage a mix of large and small cruisers. Then there's the wide open spaces and how well the boat handles in the deeper water. The speed limit on the river is 8 kph, a little more than the speed on the canal, so I was able to push the throttle down a little further than usual.

The wide open spaces...

I didn't find the weirs much of a bother, some were quite ornate...

Others gave you a good idea of just how much water you were dealing with...

I planned to stop over night in Abington but besides making such good  time, there we no moorings available so we continued on. After cruising for quite a few more hours looking for moorings it became obvious that you had to make the best of what was available. The mooring we finally took near Shillingford were marked in the guide as moorings although you would have hardly known it was a mooring.

Finding water to fill our tanks was also a bit of a challenge. We had already passed by one tap marked on the guide that didn't seem to be there so that was a priority for day two on the Thames. Cruising for less than half an hour there were several boats buzzing around a tap at a marina. We had almost passed by in Serafina but the beauty of the river, unlike the canal, is you can turn virtually anywhere. We turned into the mooring and quickly made use of the tap after checking out the sign that said 'Drinking Water - Please pay at Reception'. The price; £2 or  £1.50 if you use your Australian charm on the receptionist. Wow! not use to paying for water! Fuel was another killer, at this marina, £1.40/Lt, lucky I've got a full tank! I paid 69p/Lt (base price) at my last stop on the Oxford.

As we trekked on the next morning we saw more of these WW2 pillboxes, many of them in people's backyards.

We were luckier with our mooring for the second night. It doesn't take long to work out that the lock keepers are the people who know the ins and outs of what's going on. A quick word to the lock keeper at Goring and he pointed out two nice moorings just down from the lock...perfect! The view from the back of the boat was terrific, my photography skills don't do it justice. We seemed to be surrounded by weirs.

Goring was a quaint town where we managed to stock up on a few vital items from the local store. It was then over to the local cafe for coffee and cake. Later that evening after dinner, we trekked the few hundred metres to the Miller of Mansfield pub for a few pints.

Now a day ahead of my carefully prepared timetable, thanks mainly to the Environment Agency for their lack of the provision of suitable moorings along the Thames, we were up and ready to go at 9am to complete this leg of our Thames sojourn. Our destination today was Reading. I did notice that the further we got along the Thames, the bigger the houses seem to get. Many of these houses were quite old with very ornate boat houses.

We entered the Thames side of Reading and once again it was obvious there was a canal around somewhere as the number of canal boats moored along the Thames at Reading was significant. The entrance to the Kennet and Avon Canal wasn't quite what I expected, just a little opening behind some trees with a faded sign pointing to Reading. I slowed and after a short deliberation turned off the Thames and slowly cruised into Reading to find our mooring for the night.

We turned into a small navigable by-pass off the main channel near the Reading city centre and managed to moor, breasted up, in a rather shallow but reasonable mooring. Once moored up, Kevin and I took a stroll to see if there were more suitable moorings a little further on. We passed five boats moored ahead of us in the temporary moorings, most in disrepair, several with their license currency questionable, since no boat name, no boat registration number and no license was displayed. They also looked like they hadn't moved for some time with the amount of junk collected on the bank. Further down, the moorings were full and several boats were breasted up, so we returned to the boat content that we had the last moorings available.

Once back, the girls announced it was shopping time and we were off into town for yet another shopping tour. I must admit that Reading is well catered for in the shop department so we easily knocked over three hours before we headed back to the boat. On the way back, I came across a boat I knew from a blog I read from time-to-time, it was Maffi sitting up at the stern of his boat. After a chat I was off back to Serafina where I had a few small maintenance jobs to do.