UK Canals - Journey reports

The last day

Yesterday I mentioned the ungainly Thames barge that had delayed our progress to Bentford Basin.  We understood that the intention was to moor this barge at the bottom of "the flight", by which we assumed Hanwell Flight.   Seeing how difficult it had been to manoeuvre this vessel we didn't really want to get stuck behind it, so this morning we set off early, just at dawn to be precise.  There was just enough light to see the first bridge hole.   The second lock lies behind a large weir on the River Brent and is notorious for receiving lots of detritus washed down by heavy rain.  Well there hasn't been any significant rain for almost two months, so levels were down a few inches and the rubbish not too bad, consisting mostly of clumps of decaying towpath cuttings.   As we approached the bottom of the lock flight we were relieved to see the barge still moored up, but the tug/safety boat was already on the move ahead.    Lock 97 is a bit of a mess.   One bottom hydraulic gate paddle was u/s as was one top ground paddle.  The pound above was very low as the gates appear very leaky.   It is not unusual on this flight to find one or other pounds empty first thing in the morning and I have been known to take the bike to the top first thing and let a bit of water down.    However, once through, we had no further trouble and the folk working the safety boat had emptied a few locks ahead of us to ease our passage.  It was pleasing to see that our vegetation concerns on the offside have been dealt with now and all locks are accessible easily.    Once at the top, we settled down to the 90 minute cruise to the bottom of Cowley passing firstly the broadbeam school barge and later a loaded Denham Gravel barge on the way.  The second gravel barge was idle at its moorings above Cowley Lock as was Arundel, the narrowboat that also participates in the traffic above Uxbridge.  Soon we were at our moorings and keen to get unloaded as soon as possible to miss the rush hour traffic.   So ends our summer cruise.    Further plans?  All being well, we will do the London Ring in November and there might be other moves, who knows.   Then its winterisation all over again.

Brentford

Yesterday, at Teddington we waited for the tide.  With high tide at London Bridge given as 15:22 and adding an hour for Teddington we reckoned to leave at about 16:05.  It's pretty well slack water at that time at the top and one picks up the ebb at around Richmond with plenty of time to get to Brentford before the lock closes (today at 17:45).  Another narrowboat, however, left the moorings at 15:30, too early in my view.  As we were getting ready to leave there was a knock on the window.  The skipper of this boat had a problem.  His alternator failure light was coming on at high revs.  Could I help?  He admitted that his alternator belt was probably a bit dodgy so I suggested that if he used no power to run the battery down, the engine would run OK and we could go down in company.  WE left the lock together at 16:05 and arrived Brentford at 17:00.  The problem was that a large Thames Barge (actually a puppet theatre on the way to Little Venice) was ahead of us.  Because of its deep draught it had a safety boat with it and was very slow.  Finally we arrived at the basin.  One of the gauging locks was out of use.  The only mooring was outside the BW office, so we breasted up there.

On the way to Brentford

What a contrast with the weather.  A gloomy morning, slightly misty with persistent rain developing early on.  We are making for the late afternoon tide and are booked in at Brentford at 17:00, so no rush.  We were the only boat locking down at Sunbury, but joined three others at Molesey.  Approaching Teddington long moorings, which were empty by the way, a small trip boat came up astern and I moved over to give it room.  Some fishermen were hiding behind a moored boat with lines out and one caught a very large steel fish!  We could see his line reeling out, caught on our bows, but nothing we could do I suspect.  The look on his face as he tried to reel us in!

Walton-on-Thames

All straightforward today.  Of course, being early,  Boveney and Romney Locks were self operated with no problems.  The early morning sun made the castle quite a picture across the Home Park, set against the first of the autumnal changes in the trees.  Chertsey Lock was unmanned and we shared that with a cruiser, splitting the work.  And now here we are at Walton on Thames by the Anglers.  There was a chance to get a little maintenance done, this time sewing a patch in to repair some torn stitching on the cratch cover.  One of Pat's fabled curries tonight!  Yum!

Windsor then Boveney

The wind got up overnight as forecast.  The bottom plate was banging on an underwater obstruction that had us about 2 feet off the bank.  Temple Lock (automated) and Marlow Lock (a winder) were negotiated before the lockies were on duty. In Cliveden Deep we passed Mike Wooding out walking the dogs with Draco and Janna nearby, the former bearing all the plants and looking like the hanging gardens of Babylon.  I wanted to get some battery water thinking that after 10 weeks cruising the batteries needed some, but both Bray Marina and Windsor Marina seem to have no chandlery now.  Googling around I found a car parts shop in Windsor that did, so as we have plenty of time we made for the main road bridge and dealt with that.   We could have stayed there, but Pat being a "Strictly" fan needs TV tonight and this mooring was no good.  So being crazy as we are, we turned round and returned through Boveney Lock to the little mooring by the tiny church in the field.  Peaceful away from the road and reasonable TV from Crystal Palace.

Hurley

A clear blue sky promised a lovely day although it was very cold.  Cold air streaming off the meadows was mixing with the warm moist air over the water and creating a low lying mist which in some cases was rising in swirls.  It was just like cruising above the clouds.  Whitchurch Lock was unmanned as we reached there about 08:15.  It takes about 25 minutes to turn around and descend an old unautomated lock by winding the handles.  We were joined at Mapledurham, now thankfully manned,  by two cruisers.  Then the long haul to Reading and Caversham Lock, deep in shade and cold out of the warm sunshine.  Tesco moorings were less than half occupied, so a brief stop here to restock. We continued on past Henley.  I thought it best to call Brentford now and book our passage on Sunday.  Bad news!  Sunday is the one day of the year that the Thames Barrier is being tested and so there will be no water and passage will be impossible.  Just our luck, so now we must seriously slow down.  With that in mind we decided to stop at Hurley, below the lock.  It is £4.00 a night and further on moorings are, in our experience, a bit haphazard.   Shortly after stopping, clouds appeared and the wind is getting up.  Tomorrow is forecast stormy.

Goring

While we were getting organised a boat passed us heading for Osney Lock. The boat had all the characteristics of live-aboard seasoned boaters, so we decided to hang back and let them get through as we were not then ready to leave. 20 minutes later, they were still at the head of the lock, so we decided then to join them. They were in fact new boaters, had recently bought the boat and this was their first encounter with the River Thames. They couldn't make the automated controls work. Having been in that situation myself I explained that there was a totally logical sequence that must be employed, one part of which was that gates are left closed with the paddles up. Sure enough, the bottom paddles were up and closing them of course solved the problem. They followed us to Iffley Lock which has not been mechanised yet for out of hours use so we set about winding and had just finally started to close the exit gates when the lock keeper arrived. Surprisingly he seemed very grumpy and took over asking why we couldn't have waited for him. He said that he had been boating on the Thames for 20 years and had never used a lock without a lock keeper in attendance. When our fellow boaters offered to buy a licence, they said he was charming. We wondered if he thought we were all trying to sneak through without licences. Clifton Lock was our first unmanned lock after this being lunchtime, but opposite boaters told us at Benson that all had been unmanned. This proved to be the case from here on. At Benson an upcoming single handed narrowboater caused chaos by emerging from the middle of the queue before all boats had left the lock and spent most of the time on his mobile phone. It is true that a lock-keeper would probably have put him and another narrowboat in first to get more boats in the lock. As it happened, the second narrowboat had to wait. In my view,losing lock-keepers on the Thames will result in a lot of problems at busy times. WE passed Wallingford at 16:00, but decided to go on to Goring. There is plently of mooring space everywhere.