TRIP REPORTS

MAIN SUMMER CRUISE 2006

Part 3 - Great Bedwyn to Reading

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We resume the story with the boat at Great Bedwyn.

I set off to London on the 06:08 train. The others waited around so that they could move into After Time's slot and not keep them waiting when they were ready to move off. Wendy wanted to shop for fly-spray (reluctantly) and to visit the good baker. But After Time's cat went AWOL, they thought to teach them a lesson for having overnight visitors. Wendy set off for the village, and on the way met some disgruntled boaters who also suffered from the flies and had found that the shop had sold out of fly-spray. By the Bruce Trust moorings, two BW men sounded very pessimistic about the Crofton stoppage. Boats like Guelrose would have difficulty finding a 70ft winding hole before the stoppage.

They set off at 11:28, winded in the winding hole before Bedwyn Church lock and set off back eastwards, sharing locks with Peeress, yet another borrowed-from-a-friend boat with an amazingly efficient crew considering that this was their first day. There were some rather silly swimmers at Hungerford Marsh lock, but not as bad as those we'd met at Fobney a few days before. There were no available moorings above Hungerford lock, so they moored immediately below it at 16:47.

Both cats had good hunting. Wendy had to rescue the same bird twice from Mandy, and Tilly did great execution among mice. Wendy finally managed to buy some fly-spray, but we wish the things would go away without it. They started cruising at 12:28 and reached the moorings above Kintbury lock at 15:31. They grabbed the last-but-one mooring, and the last one may well have been too short for us. The cats took great umbrage when Wendy forced them outside in order to use the insecticide. Mandy actually battered at the cat-flap from outside. Some execution was done, but we feared that the flies are becoming resistant.

The weather forecasts this morning were confusing - were they too far to the east or the west of the thunder-hail / calm demarcation? Wendy went to the village for newspapers but their forecast were just as ambiguous, so they set off anyway at 10:34 . Wendy 'phoned Newbury Boat Services and arranged to 'phone back next day at 09:00 to find out whether they've got (or can get) the necessary filters for our oil change (we need the gearbox oil doing this time as well as the engine oil), and to arrange when they can fit us in. They had very competent partners on Just John for the first four locks, but they tied onto friends at Benham for lunch. Next they met a useful boat but some paddles were unusable as they came down.

At Newbury Wharf they were back on the Kennet Navigation. The moorings on the park were all taken, so they moved on to the first available space beyond the weir, opposite the beginning of Greenham Island boatyard and tied up at 15:16. They were just behind Poppy II which was nicely tucked in to the bank, but they had to moor with a front boarding plank and the stern well out.

Wendy shopped early, then 'phoned the engineer at Greenham, Paul, as requested. He contacted Beta Marine and asked Wendy to 'phone back at 15:00 to check whether the filters had arrived. Ian explored Newbury. Wendy chatted quite a lot with the man (Mike) off Hampshire, who moors at the back of Greenham Island. He's working at the Newbury Waterways Festival this weekend. There were lots of very floral boats, up to four abreast on the Festival moorings. Wendy rang Paul who offered to do the job late this afternoon, but because of the mooring situation (caused by the Festival), they arranged to do the work next morning. I came back in the evening after (among other things) a couple of days in tidal water in London on the IWA boat Jubilee. There were venison steaks for dinner, with wine Ian had brought with him.

Ian went back home, and we set off to the boatyard at 09:10. Paul changed our engine & gearbox oil and traced the fault with the horn to a blown fuse, which he replaced with an up-graded one. I bought gas.

Continuing, we were sharing locks with Mistral Breeze, three-handed. They knew what they were doing at the locks but were very slow travelling between them. We stopped at Thatcham at 14:42, earlier than expected, because Wendy was suffering from floaters in her bad eye and needed to go to Moorfields. She went off on the 16:19 train.

Wendy came back in the morning, feeling tired. The doctor had told her to rest, so we decided to spend the day here doing nothing. Graham & Brenda Keens came by on Jannock and said hello in passing.

We were prevented from an early start by first Tilly then Mandy going out hunting. We set off at 10:24 and had partners all the way to Tyle Mill, Pukeko (from Froud's Bridge) for the first lock and then one of a trio of boats from Braunston. At the facilities point below Tyle Mill lock we and our partner both needed to stop for water. The other two Braunston boats caught up with us (we'd passed them at Aldermaston), and the trio had been thinking of stopping here for the night. We think that must have happened as we were single for the rest of the way. We tied up at The Cunning Man, Burghfield, at 18:40, next to the jetty, and had a very pleasant meal at the pub. The trip boat Lancing picked up passengers from the jetty, which has obviously been designed to allow them to do so with narrowboats moored either side of it. They warned us that they'd be coming back late, but we were still up and about.

It was a very windy day. We started at 10:28 and were alone at Southcote lock, but at Fobney we seemed to have a stroke of luck in the form of a boat coming up, so Wendy declined to put a rope ashore. When the uphill boat turned out to be a single-handed ditherer, she spent a lot of time touring the scenery thanks to the combined effects of the wind and the weir. She had problems with mud on the off side, and finally, when both lock gates were open, came into the lock alongside the still-not-yet departed other boat. Almost as soon as he had gone, a partner, Freewheelin', appeared for us to share locks with. Below the lock there was again fun and games with the wind and the weir. While our two boats both needed to pick up crew, a small uphill boat plonked itself right in the middle of the lock landing.

At Kennet Mouth we turned left on the Thames. We originally planned to stop at Tesco first, but there was no room on the moorings so we changed the order of doing things and first went to the Better Boating boatyard for a pump-out. before going back to try again at Tesco. This time we did find room on the moorings, outboard of an anonymous grey (and slightly grumpy, but actually kind & helpful) boat with a large dog. Wendy shopped strenuously and we had lunch on board. We winded, passed through Caversham lock and tied up immediately past Reading bridge at 16:20. We stopped on the recreation ground moorings, tying up with difficulty in the face of a strong wind that wanted to take us to the other side of the river. Wendy's hat blew away.