Abingdon to Wallingford

After Christine had got her weekly fix of The Saturday Mail and I had got rid of the rubbish and done the necessary with the Thetford cassette! we set off for Wallingford. The river was busy with cruisers out for the weekend but as we were in no particular hurry, we let them pass, when they came up astern clipping at  our heels. The lock keepers don't seem to organise the locks the way they did a few years ago, when all narrow boats entered the lock first, followed by the cruisers. Then the cruisers exited first. This was because the narrow boats were made of steel and very heavy and could damage the much lighter fibreglass cruisers when manoeuvring  in the tight constraints of the lock.
At one lock we let all the cruisers go first and we waited for the next locking as there was a very well restored river cruiser and the skipper was very worried that his boat would get crushed in the melee. He was very grateful to us as the lock keeper told us afterwards.

It was an easy passage to Wallingford and we passed some magnificent properties but when we arrived there were no moorings available as all the cruisers we had let pass us were happily moored up with the crews all in the pub. C'est la Vie. We went a little further down and moored up near a bank (note I say near a bank) I threw the stern rope to Christine but every time I did this she jumped back and the rope disappeared into the water. After the third or fouth throw she got the idea and put her foot on the rope. I then put the stakes in  and got the gang plank out across the roof of the boat to the bank much to Christine's horror. There was no way that I could convince her that she would be safe if I gave her my hand when she came across  so I upped stakes and off we went a bit further down stream and luckily found a nice mooring close to the bank albeit  a bit further away from Wallingford. We have decided that we will venture into the town tomorrow to have a look around, as we are a bit tired after all the effort with the aborted mooring.

Busy Lock Ahead

This was one of the Steam Launches that we saw at Godstow Abbey on the way to Lechlade It's Called
"El Candra " and El Caldera in spanish means boiler so it could be "The Old Boiler"  very apt!

I'll never get this in there


Wow! Who Lives Here!

 

It's those Gondola Gals again. Yes they are Italian and they all sleep on the accompanying  narrow boat each night
CAN YOU IMAGINE THE NOISE!!!!! LADS
12 Italian women

Lovely Summerhouse



Shillingford Bridge



Lovely located Hotel