Oxford to Clifton Hampden

Monday 16th March

We began by doing a 'full service' at the facilities near to our overnight mooring. Then we continued down through Oxford, out through Louse Lock into Sheepwash Channel and from there onto the Thames itself.

The picture below is of the new light in the bathroom which Mike eventually managed to connect up after a lot of initial frustration, feeding the cable behind the panels. It may seem unremarkable in the picture but you should have seen the sweat it caused.

We quickly discovered a much faster pace - the river was flowing well, although now well down onto Orange, after Red Boards a week ago. Arriving at the first lock our next task was to purchase a 2 day licence for the river - £35. The fee structure at the lock seemed rather different from that on the web site - but it did seem slightly more favourable!

There was very little movement on the river - we only passed three boats all day. The first was pulling a chain of punts back up to Oxford and the second was a workboat.

The weather was splendid and it made the river scenery quite special. Unlike the Trent, the banks are quite low and there is much more to see. Coming into Abingdon Lock was quite tricky. The alignment involves coming quite close to the entrance to the weir stream and the keeper was somewhat slower in coming to operate the lock than we expected. All in all, this resulted in us being drawn unavoidably onto the poles placed in the river for just such an eventuality, but not one that we had intended to use!

We moored below the bridge at Abingdon for lunch. Afterwards we made a quick trip into town for some shopping. A pleasant centre but the market we had been promised was rather disappointing and the fruit and veg stall had already packed up for the day! Still, we did find a new, small Co-Op which had what we wanted - milk was the most important - and a couple of other shops yielded a few additional items, including a couple of OS maps which we had forgotten to order before leaving.

The Thames locks are very different in operation, including a requirement to turn off engines whilst in a lock. Fore and aft lines have to be held from the boat - at least when the lock is manned. We failed to reach Clifton Lock by four o'clock when the lock keeper went off duty. (We arrived just three minutes too late!) However, we had been told that we could operate ourselves: just follow the instructions. This we did but there were a few false starts along the way and it took us almost half an hour to pass through! Will do better another time, now we know what is supposed to happen.

We were promised moorings on both banks just before Clifton Hampden Bridge. The one on the right bank had 'No Mooring' and the other indicated a £3 mooring fee. We shall just have to see who collects it!