Mike Stevens' UK Inland Waterways Pages

TRIP REPORTS : THE FELIS CATUS II YEARS

A SOUTHERN CRUISE : SUMMER 1994

Part 1 : Summer Half Term — London to Thatcham.

In 1994 Felis Catus II was based at High Line Yachting's yard at Cowley Peachey on the Southern GU. [Click here for information about the boat.] We'd done some cruising around Easter and been to Cavalcade, and now planned to spend the main part of our Summer cruising on the Kennet & Avon (which passes through the area where I grew up) and the Thames before heading for the National Waterways Festival, which that year was at Waltham Abbey, with the Limehouse Festival the preceding weekend.

I didn't start photographing until we got to the Kennet & Avon.

SUMMER HALF TERM

We came up from home to the mooring on the Wednesday of Half Term, a very warm, sunny day. Wendy went to the launderette and into Uxbridge to shop while the washing was "cooking". Uxbridge Tesco is not very inspiring. I stayed at the boat filling up with diesel, partly to make the boat a bit "nose-up" on the tideway. I bought fuel and water and built a mounting for some battery-powered navigation lights in case we should need them on the Thames..

We started off at 15:2 and headed south towards Brentford, working alone down the lock - hot work in the sun. At Clitheroe's lock we met a family of three goats, but also had to enlist a passer-by to get the bottom gate open because of what appeared to be a broken top gate paddle.

We moored for the night close to the footbridge to Boston Manor Park. The mooring had a highish wall next to it, so wasn't ideal for the cats: we hoped neither of them would fall in. I had a chat with people on nb Tremyranne II, which was also planning to go out on tomorrow's tide.

We wanted to lock out as soon as the locks were available, so made an early start at 0610, moved down to the gauging lock and had breakfast while waiting for the lock-keeper to come on duty. (In those days the gauging lock as well as Thames lock was keeper-operated.) He was later than expected since, we later found out, he'd been dealing with the bad paddle at Clitheroe's. We locked down the Gauging lock with Tremyranne II at 07:36, and above Thames locks we joined nb Song of Joey (who we'd met the previous year) with their two rescued English setters, and cruiser Mayflower. The four boats locked down the paired locks together and all headed up the tideway towards Teddington.

The weather was dry and calm, and the water dead flat. There was a slight hiccup at Richmond, where a large illuminated sign told us "Barriers closed, please use lock", which wasn't in fact true. Tremyranne II tried to follow the instructions, was waved off and had to do a circle to get back in position for the bridge.

The PLA's jurisdiction on the tideway stops a little way below Teddington Lock, and the lock, like the non-tidal river was then under the jurisdiction of the National Rivers Authority, so we purchased their 15-day visitor's licence from the lock-keeper.

That morning we saw marinas advertising diesel variously at 70p and 59p - compared with the £1.18 we'd paid back at base! We stopped for lunch opposite Dockett Eddy, Chertsey, then continued in what was now rather mixed weather. At 17:39 we moored for the night at Runnymede, at the one place where the road wasn't nearby. There was a no mooring sign that some people on another boat told us was unauthorised. They were Alan and Mary, on cruiser Nordland, which they use for river & sea cruising, and in which they had been to Strasbourg the previous year. We socialised with them before and after dinner. This proved a very good mooring for cats, between showers.

We set off at 08:31 on Friday morning. In Windsor Great Park, where there's no mooring either side, there was a fair bit of steam from the engine header-tank, which cleared when we throttled right down, so we took it steady into Windsor where we stopped for a while. Wendy went to buy a paper & other oddments. It's a town of trendy & wedding-present shops, but she eventually found what was needed. I checked the engine and found no apparent damage to any of the hoses, and only a little water used, so it looked as though we'd been just pushing the engine rather harder than it likes.

We set off again mid-morning and by afternoon the weather was pretty wet. The assistant lock-keeper at Boulter's looks just like Pete Marshall (of Daystar Theatre) playing a pedantic lock-keeper. In fact all the lock-keepers are extremely pleasant : noticeably more so than in 1978. That night's overnight mooring (at 17:31) was above Medmenham : a field mooring with good depth, but we had to pay £3. We moored with inches (an inch?) to spare from touching cruiser My Mayfly, but the family on it seemed unperturbed. Father & 2 children visited us to see inside our boat. They went away with one of Bridgewater Boats' brochures as well as my usual IWA hand-out.

Saturday brought a late start (09:50) because (a) we were both stuck into Terry Pratchett books and (b) the weather was really foul (which latter state continued all day). We found that Shiplake sanitary station offered every facility, including free DIY pump-out, and used just about all of them!

At 14:41 we turned into the River Kennet at Reading. Blake's lock, which is run by the NRA, is manned. We decided to stop before High Bridge at 15:11 as the weather was still foul, and there was a heck of a lot of current coming down Brewery Gut. Wendy did some odds and ends of shopping - cat litter, The Guardian and Pernod. I visited a pub before dinner (the Hobgoblin, an excellent if basic pub with many real ales and busy with a young clientele). We later discovered that this is where Sam Dent, daughter of some friends, worked at the time.

We left the kitchen side-hatch open at the mooring, which enabled a couple of passing punks to ask interested questions, so we invited them in for a drink. One of them told us that we'd chosen a rather rough spot to moor and insisted on handing our water can and loud-hailer in to us for safe keeping. Actually although it was a bit noisy it wasn't that bad a mooring - we only heard one snatch of the "Rosie and Jim" song.

Next morning the weather was dry & sunny and the current was noticeably less, so we set off quite early (06:32) and found no problems with the current in Brewery Gut. So we were glad we'd stopped where we did the night before. Moorings are few and far between on this navigation.

Stopping for breakfast, before Burghfield bridge, Wendy took the centre line ashore and the current caught the boat's bow and swung us right across the cut. A passing boat, nb Giggle, coming downstream on the current couldn't help bumping us (no harm done to either), and we ended up facing backwards. And the village didn't have a newsagent!

After breakfast we winded (this time deliberately) in the entrance to Burghfield backwater. On the Kennet Navigation we found a great variety of designs of swing-bridge, but all time-consuming.

We stopped to visit the BW Visitor Centre at Aldermaston wharf, where a pleasant woman was on duty, but there was nothing there really for the serious boater, although plenty of introductory material for tourists. Then we were joined in Aldermaston lock by two other boats, one of whom had local knowledge, which came in useful at Woolhampton, where he was able to advice us that there was a difficult fast river-flow in below the lock, with a sand scour half-way across the channel. The solution is (a) set the lock before opening the swing bridge and (b) (at least going upstream), give it a lot of "welly". He also told us of convenient moorings between Thatcham ex-swing-bridge and Monkey Marsh lock, near the station.

This proved a convenient mooring at 19:09, (although not as deep as we would like), within a few minutes walk of the station and good for the cats, although Orinthia was very put-out by a noisy magpie. I visited The Swan (Courage), just past the station. We slept on board and went home on the 07:32 next morning.