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.