TRIP REPORTS

MAIN SUMMER CRUISE 2006

Part 2 - Sonning to Great Bedwyn.

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We resume the story with the boat at Sonning.

Our old friend Ian was joining us for a while. He and I made rendezvous at Paddington station and travelled together, arriving around 11:30. We started cruising at 12:04 and stopped fairly soon at Reading Tesco. The moorings here weren't quite full but didn't have any gaps long enough for us, so we were grateful when the couple on Guelrose invited us to breast up. Ian & Wendy shopped (crowded & noisy) while I caught up on writing up the log. It was well into the afternoon by the time we were on the move again. We winded and went back to Kennet mouth to join the Kennet Navigation.

At Fobney lock there were a lot of kids swimming in the lock, including while we were using it - we warned them of the danger of this, but they took no notice. Our day finished at The Cunning Man, Burghfield at 18:52. The decent depth moorings here were taken, so we had to moor a bit out from the bank and use the boarding-plank. Ian & I went for a couple of pints each to cool down. We then decided we were too far out from the bank to get the barbecue ashore easily, so Wendy cooked on board. Quite late in the evening (well after dark) the boat on the good mooring ahead of us moved off, and we wondered whether to pull forward to be nearer the bank, but settled for adjusting our mooring to ensure that the plank was safe overnight.

After a late night, we woke later than planned, and Tilly went walkabout before we'd got round to closing the cat-flap. After a while we thought it likely she'd stay out all day, so we pulled the boat forward to a deeper mooring where we didn't need the mooring plank, although the stern was still some way out. Wendy went on a vain search for newspapers. Tilly came back in the evening. We barbecued some nice trout.

We shut the cat-flap early in order to get away and were mobile by 9:49. At Tyle Mill lock facilities point we took on water & disposed of rubbish. At Padworth wharf we stopped for a pump-out and some chandlery (we got a replacement for the missing windlass and for the lost coolie-hat, but forgot to get Elsan Blue) We tied up at the Rowbarge Inn, Woolhampton at 16:13. There was plenty of room on the pub mooring so we stopped there and dined in their garden. Later a downhill boat didn't heed the advice to open the bridge before leaving the lock, tried to moor in front of us and was almost spun round because of not tying their upstream line first.

I went to London early in the morning. The others set off at 10:00 and arrived at Newbury wharf at 15:34. They shopped a little, found recycling bins at Sainsbury's, and noted the store's opening time (6am). There was loud thunder and rain in the night.

Wendy shopped later than intended because of a disturbed night. She wasn't out of Sainsbury's until nearly 09:00. I arrived back but was also very tired, so we decided to spend the day here. Wendy went to the chandlery at Greenham Island boatyard for the Elsan Blue we'd forgotten the day before, and a couple of volumes of Nicholson's we needed. There were dramatic thunderstorms and very fierce rain for a long time. Ian dealt with the pigeon box and kitchen side-hatch to keep the rain out.

We made a leisurely start at 12:39 after Wendy had made another trip to the recycling place. We passed (without any visible signification of the fact) from the Kennet Navigation onto the Kennet & Avon Canal. A Sea Otter boat, Otter Magic, waited for us at Newbury lock and we shared with them for most of the day. We kept catching up with a boat called Jeannie, which looked like an ex-Adelaide Marine hire-boat. Its people said this was their first day, and they really didn't know what they were doing. Perhaps they'd borrowed the boat from a friend. By Kintbury we'd caught them up completely, and Otter Magic shared the lock with them. We came up singly. Wendy thought there was room to wind a gate paddle down with her new longer-throw windlass while the gate was open, but the gate hadn't opened all the way and when it did her fingers were pinched between the windlass & the gate - fortunately with no lasting damage, although it was very painful. Above Kintbury lock we took on water and had to moor (at 16:52) nearly at Vicarage Bridge, almost opposite what was left of a tree that had fallen across the cut in the previous day's storm.

08:52 wasn't as early a start as Wendy would have liked, but later (after circumnavigating the turquoise Peugeot in the water by the second bridge) we didn't find a partner until Hungerford, where we waited for Guelrose, steered by the son of the people we'd moored outboard of at Reading in the same boat.

Later still we caught up with one of the Reading Marine hire-boats with a pleasant family who were revisiting the canal after twelve years, but who seemed rather confused. We reached Bedwyn visitor moorings at 15:00. There were no moorings free here, so Wendy asked After Time if we could breast up with them, which they agreed to. They had a cat on board but this didn't seem to create any problems with our two. We had acquired a plague of flies. I decided to stay overnight and make an early start for London in the morning. I found on the Internet that there were stoppages beyond Crofton because of water shortage, so we decided to turn back either here or at Crofton. We later learned that the water shortage was because the back-pumping gear had been struck by lightning.