Send Church

 Today's Navigation : Wey

We awoke to another very bright, cloudless morning with everything looking fresh and alert. As can be seen, we had moored right at the end of the navigable part of the river. (Technically there are another 10 metres or so which small craft can use but this is the practical limit for boats such as ours)

Before we left, Christine popped up to the specialist bread shop that Mike spotted yesterday` (but which was by then closed for the day) When she returned we started to reverse the first section to the winding hole.

There us not a lot of room for boat turning (as much because of the odd shape of the corner in the bend of the river) so we adopted the slightly unusual method of putting the stern into the corner and then let the current pull the bow around. It took a while but proceeded confidently (river streams have that habit!) Still, it gave us time to admire the remaining building on the wharf.

Catteshall may think that it is the last lock on the navigation but for us today it was the first. The crew of a small day boat were going through their initial instruction before being let loose on their own.

We stopped below the lock at the Boathouse hire base to fill up with diesel. It was quite expensive (although not quite as much as on the Thames when we came down). They told us that the Environment Agency will only let them have a small tank which means that they have to buy it at the highest rates. By the time were filled and had paid, the day boat was also ready to depart and we shared the next few locks.

As we went through Unstead Lock cloud cover arrived - had we had the best of the day? By no means. Not long after, the brilliant sunshine returned and the afternoon was especially clear and very warm.

It was raining when we came by Guns Mouth two days ago - what a contrast today!

Whilst waiting for St Catherine's Lock to be filled we spotted this venerable (or, like us, gnarled) tree.

A

gain plenty of help at this lock - walkers as well as the day boat crew.

The day boat moored for their picnic lunch at the Meadows whilst we carried on through Millmead Lock and stopped on the town moorings where we stayed the night before last. There was still plenty of help at this lock, especially a small girl who was keen to discover how the lock worked. After winding paddles up and down and opening the gates she had a much clearer idea!

This is the Town Bridge again - but from the other side and in good sunshine.

On the town wharf there is this statue, a homage to the Bargemen we operated the boats in the heyday of the navigation. Much of it was extremely hard, physical work. The statue was commissioned for the millennium

After lunch we moved up to Dapdune Wharf where we went through the usual servicing. Time to take a few pix.

The model of a lock had an apologetic note that it was not working at the moment. Pity as it would have been interesting to see how it coped with the obvious 'feature' - the top gates are the same size and level as the bottom gates!

At Stoke Bridge, the  offices of the Surrey Advertiser are in this splendid building (The navigation goes sharp left before the bridge) Despite numerous changes of ownership and structure it still seems to survive when so many local newspapers have become little more than advertising sheets and offshoots of a national chain.

At Stoke Lock we managed a better picture of the barge under restoration - it might have been even clearer if we were allowed to get close but Private deterred us.

Bowers Lock is the one that exits as a T junction direct onto the passing river. Mike managed to get onto the nearer lock landing to pick up Christine and fortunately he sounded the horn as we set off as a reply came immediately - a hire boat was approaching at speed and only just missed us.

The rural mooring we had been aiming for was already occupied (by the same boat that did this to us last night!) and, as luck would have it, the next was also taken. (Most of these moorings only have  room for a single boat) We continued to the next marked on our maps - by now we were keen to call a halt. Alas this was not the best of moorings and the new gangplank had to be deployed.

Later Christine went for a walk along the towpath to the next bridge. She reported that the mooring alongside that bridge is much better than this one - but she declined the option of moving (Dinner in five minutes!

Yesterday we managed to book a mooring for next weekend when we have a friend's birthday party to go to. Today we booked Thames Lock at Brentford (now on the CaRT website Passage Booking facility) having checked out the tide times.

9.9 Miles - 6 Locks