Aldermaston and Reading

Following a phone call last night, we began the day committed to reaching the 'Tesco' mooring by tonight in order to meet up with Ellie and Alice who will be dropped off by Joanna around 7:30 in the morning and will stay with us until late evening - hopefully meeting up again at Marlow or somewhere in that area.

It was a wonderful, hot sunny day - many a day in summer is not better than this. Working the locks was quite warm work, today.

This section of the Kennet and Avon has many swing bridges as well as locks - some of them mechanised where they hold up the traffic. Others are accommodation bridges for landowners and have to be worked manually.

Woolhampton was a challenge - even more so coming down than going up, especially as there were other 'helpful' people around and a boat on the downstream landing waiting to come up. That, and the fact that one of the PMR's was not switched on, resulted in Christine overshooting the landing and leaving Mike to walk to Froud's bridge, a bit over a mile away!

At Aldermaston we stopped at the wharf for the usual services before stopping the traffic once more with the lift bridge. Alas, the boatyard were fresh out of diesel - expecting a delivery later today - so we were unable to re-fuel. Hopefully we will find some tomorrow. Just as well not to leave it to the last moment. Options going down the Thames seem, from the guide books, to be a bit limited.

Towney Lock was enlarged and the Ufton lock de-gated during the restoration of the canal, thus avoiding one set of lock equipment!

We stopped above Tyle Mill lock for lunch but were shortly passed by a single-handed (plus dog!) boat which had shared locks with us for most of the morning. Christine, noting our need to make good progress, suggested we set off immediately with lunch not finished in order to share the work. As it happened, he moored up before Theale Swing Bridge where he hoped to meet up with his brother.

From Fobney Lock onwards, navigation is 'interesting'. The lock exit itself has a very fast flowing mill stream just at the lower lock landing and immediately we were onto the fast flowing river section. Steering is quite hard work as the current takes the boat where it wants - not always in the right direction! However, we have been down this section once before so were more prepared and passed through County Lock without undue difficulty. (The PMR batteries lasted long enough to help!) Although it is a very shallow lock (officially 14 inches fall) the swirling current from the adjacent weir stream cause problems and it is best to move out of the lock onto the landing with the traffic lights using a rope.

The section through the Oracle centre is very fast flowing and narrow, which is why there is a one-way system controlled by traffic lights. Only minutes later we were onto the comparative calm of the last part through Blakes Lock, the first of the Thames locks, although it is still on the River Kennet. we passed the former biscuit factory which once used water transport to avoid too many broken biscuits.

Turning upstream for about 100 metres we came to the planned mooring outside the large Tesco superstore. Time to enjoy the wonderful sunny evening.