Abingdon

Our trip to Napton was neatly cut up into 6 hour days by Nick Atty's Canal Planner, but Friday was planned as a full day, so we should have spent last night at Wallingford.  This meant a bit of catching up was necessary to reach the planned stop for tonight - Abingdon.   A usual early start saw us off at 7:00 (leaving another mooring pin behind as we found later).  The sky had been clear overnight with a brilliant moon, so as expected the river was very misty even to the extent of fog in places where the two banks could scarcely be seen together.  However, by the time the river left the steep hills on the left, the sun was visible and the mist quickly cleared.   We were grateful that Goring Lock and Cleeve Lock have both had the new powered controls added so we were through in quick time.  Proceeding on there was very little traffic and only when reaching Culham Lock were we waiting for down stream traffic.  Minutes before lunch time, the lock keeper let us (and a plastic boat) in saying he would let us up, then leave us to wind ourselves out.   As it happened a cheery boat going down stream helped us out.   There are lovely (free) moorings at Abingdon below the bridge and although we fitted in nicely to a space between the cruisers already moored there, the bank was just too high for the dogd and Grannie to get off.   This meant a lot of pfaffing around trying to find somewhere else, especially as we needed shopping.   Eventually we found the perfect spot between the bridge and the lock - just for the rear half.   Shopping done, a cool beer on the bank was the order of the day.