Travelling to Oxford and the Thames to Lechlade

We spent a couple of days in Banbury and had a well earned break, we arrived a day earlier than anticipated. Time to stock up the refrigerator and the cupboards and get the boat ready for our visitors. The dining table can be made into a double bed, the seats store all the extra bedding required.

I took the train from Banbury down to London to pick our friends up from the St Pancras International Station and get them across the Tube network to Paddington (above ground) Station and then back to Banbury. An evening of catch-up, then the next morning and afternoon for local sightseeing in Banbury before setting off for a three hour evening cruise to a nice mooring just out of Aynho. We put the visitors straight to work on the locks.

The next morning a 9:30am start for another three hour cruise to Lower Heyford where we met up with our cruising friends on NB Dunslavin for a canalside BBQ. The days continue to be lovely and warm, around the mid-20's celsius, but the evenings cool quickly once the sun has gone around 9pm.

We continued our three hour cruising plan to Thrupp the next day and our last three hour cruise finally mooring in Oxford the day after where we did the usual tourist things. Our first day was a shopping tour, as expected, followed by a nice lunch at the Turf Inn, a quaint little pub we needed quite specific instructions to get to. The Turf Inn, with roots back to 1381 is a very important landmark for Australians because one of our most popular Prime Ministers, Bob Hawke, set a Guinness Book record for skolling a yard of ale in 11 seconds.

Lunch was followed up by a guided tour of Oxford, a mix of Oxford University meets Harry Potter, a selection of photos from the tour below.

All Souls Church

Christ's Church

All Souls College

All Souls Quadrangle

The Great Hall of Christ Church

Radcliffe Camera built circa 1737

Hertford Bridge - The Bridge of Sighs

After a week of cruising and touring it was time to take our friends to Oxford Station for their trip back to London to catch a train to Germany. Time for a quick bite of lunch afterwards before dropping down through Isis Lock onto the River Thames and upstream for a three hour cruise to Eynsham. First stop was Godstow Lock, beautifully kept, this is where the Environment Agency hit me up for £68 for a week of River Thames cruising.

Next to Godstow Lock was a nunnery ruin dating back to 1133 with only the walls left of what was once a large estate with a huge church, courts and cloisters.

Working our way through the locks, it seemed that throughout our journey every second lock was unstaffed.

 

We've been on the Thames before and as expected the moorings were poor away from the locks, this mooring is just near Eynsham, no rings of course! Lock moorings were rather expensive at £9.50/day for a mooring or £11.50 with power.

Eynsham moorings

Another beautiful day for cruising, a four hour cruise finishing at The Trout Inn near Bampton. Only one mooring available so breasting up again. It's easier to have the cruiser stern narrowboat on the mooring first but with me leading I had to hover with wind in my face as well as the current on my bow. A difficult maneuver that had it's moments, the boat always wanting to go sideways across the river. These moorings were quite good and the meal at The Trout was nice although on the expensive side.

Tadpoole Bridge

Our last day of cruising was four hours to reach Lechlade at the end of the navigable Thames where there were plenty of moorings available right next to town in a farmer's field, complete with a herd of cows. First time I have ever been woken up to cows licking the side of the boat.

Glamping at Radcot Bridge

Lechlade from across the River Thames

Toll House on Halfpenny Bridge at Lechlade built circa 1792.

There was a similar bridge and toll house going into Eynsham still operating. The toll operators were charging cars 5p to cross, trucks were around 60p. I didn't think it was worth having the traffic queues and two operators for such a small amount until I checked on Google where in 2016 there were 4 million crossings that year!

Just a few shots around Lechlade, a nice little town with good transport connections.

A two day break in Lechlade before turning from our mooring and letting the current and the wind turn Serafina around heading downstream from whence we came. We had a rather long cruise mooring in the public moorings outside the Ferryman Inn at Bablock Hythe, a very quiet pub. Our last night on the river was spent back at Eynsham, same moorings but arriving earlier gave us a mooring each. And, getting there early gave us a chance to catch up on a little painting.

We cruised off early for our last day turning onto The Duke's Cut to bypass Oxford. The Duke's Cut was a little bit on the wilderness side, very overgrown and a few boats there that looked like it was quite a while since they had moved, no facilities near by either. Entering the Oxford Canal through Duke's Cut Lock with a lock mechanism I hadn't seen before. Easy to use but I wasn't sure it was working at first, a few more turns of the windlass and 'hey presto'.

Out of the lock, around the corner and into Duke's Lock heading towards Thrupp.

Some Long Cruising Days

It's been a busy time!

After a tearful farewell to our family, grandchildren and grandparents included we headed back to the boat and launched immediately, it was time to 'put the foot down'. We had to be in Banbury by Sunday 10 Jun, we had seven days...easy! I had planned a more leisurely route back in Australia, with all our stopovers, that went out the window! This meant several long days, we did three or four in a row, I slept like a log each night with enough time to have dinner and then almost straight into bed.
A few pics of what we saw along the way...

Glamping

Looking back as we climb the Atherstone Flight on the Coventry Canal

Our mooring on the Oxford Canal just past Ansty.

Quite a bit of work going on beside the canal at Rugby, looks like road work or it could be rail but we didn't have time to stop and find out as we sped past one of our usual stops at a breakneck 4mph.

Our best run came as we tossed up whether to climb the Napton Locks or tie up for the night, what a great run! We cruised into Lock 8, the first lock on the Napton Flight, which was already set for us, and it was the same right through to Lock 13 where we decided to call it a day. There was noone using the flight at all, admittedly it was 7pm when we started.

Napton on the Hill

The buffalo are still happily grazing near Lock 12.

Next day, a stopover at Fenny Compton to pickup bread, which was really Rachael holding the boat while I ran into the Pub/General Store, a fuel stop at the marina around the corner and on to Cropedy for the night which left us with a shortish cruise into Banbury on the Friday morning. A ring ahead as we came into Banbury and our friend Kevin from NB Dunslavin was there to spot a mooring for us which turned out to be in front of the shopping centre. A bit of a break after some heavy cruising before our friends from Australia arrive.

A Slow Start for 2018

It's been a slow start to this cruising season but we are finally out of the marina and on to the cut. We have spent quite a time in Scotland with family followed by having some work done on Serafina.

We planned to do some upgrades to Serafina last season, it's taken up until now to pin down a carpenter to do those upgrades we had planned, at a reasonable price. After taking two hours to cook a cake last year a new cooker was the first thing on the list.

The galley with the old cooker

The new cooker with pot drawer under, first shot mid project and finally the completed product. I must admit I didn't completely understand the installation procedure after talking with the engineer at the marina when he said to me to put it in and he would come over and check it and get it certified. I don't think there will be a next time, but if there is, I'll just get a gas certified plumber to install the cooker and then he can certify his own work and it will be finished instead of having too many people involved. One thing that did come up when the plumber did his checks was the requirement for new tails to the gas bottles, which were out of date. These were only just in date last year when Serafina had her BSS and the manual switch over tap required changing (also out of date). These items both came from Midland Chandlers by mail although I think they must have used a narrowboat, it took six days to get here. Getting things organised at a marina can be a slow process!

We didn't have any drawers in the kitchen now we have two. We reduced the size of one of the cupboards to gain a cutlery drawer.

The side hatch door linings were replaced. When we bought Serafina the old linings were in poor shape and couldn't be restored. The roof hatch linings over the side doors were replaced too, I still have to install some crank bolts so it can be locked from the inside.

 

We found it difficult to replace the bathroom cabinet without completely renovating the whole bathroom so the fix Rachael came up with was to replace the cabinet top and tiles.

The old cabinet

The finished product

With the work to Serafina done we are heading off to Oxford with some of our family aboard for a few days, we will meet friends from Australia along the way who will join us for a few days as well. Let's hope we get all the timings right, since their using trains a railway station is critical!