Goring to Wargrave, 16.5 miles, 5 locks
Beautiful sunshine when I woke up, in contrast to last night's snow, but if it had been snowing then it had to have been a cold night and I was dreading what I might find outside. After a breakfast of branflakes and yoghurt (must buy bananas!) I wrapped myself up in several layers, put on my wooly hat and ventured outside.
Instead of a layer of snow on the roof, everything was covered in ice. In some places it was quite thick—on the flat surface of the solar panel for example—and the ropes were stuck to the roof with icy glue. Oothoon was parked on the shaded side of the river, so none of this was likely to thaw for a while, but I realised that if I set off then I'd be in the sun and it would be a different story. With that thought uppermost, I gave the engine 60 seconds of glowplugs and was delighted when it started straight away.
While I was liberating the ropes from their icy prison, the man from yesterday's little cruiser walked past. He stopped for a chat and said that his partner was feeling quite ill; and that all their boots and waterproofs were frozen solid. Apparently they didn't want to take them inside the boat last night because they were wet and now they were regretting it. He thought I was brave to set off, but wished me luck.
One I'd unmoored and got to the other side of the river, things immediately improved. The sun was shining strongly and there were no clouds in the sky at all. Gradually things started thawing and as I went along the roof slowly steamed, matching the mist that was rising from the river in places. One funny thing was seeing 'duck breath': I'd be passing some ducks who would be quacking out their annoyance at being disturbed, and with each quack a little breathy cloud would emerge from the duck's beak in the cold air. It was like the smoke signals that you see in comics, with each puff of smoke containing a quack.
This stretch of river goes past Beale Park, where there are moorings. I remember last year thinking how this would be a lovely place to stop for a day during the summer and I still do. A narrowboat had taken advantage of the mooring there and it looked very peaceful.
By the time I reached Whitchurch lock everything had thawed and was now sodden. As I entered the lock, I said a cheery hello to the lock keeper then asked whether he was in a rush. I realised that this might be taken the wrong way, however he gave me the benefit of the doubt and asked why, and I had to explain the cold weather had got to me and that I was desperate to use the toilet! I tied up and disappeared below to relieve myself, and by the time I emerged another boat had joined me in the lock.
Whitchurch to Mapledurham lock is a pretty but relatively boring stretch of water. The 'towpath' disappears at some point, leaving you uninhabited fields on both sides although there's an island to make it more interesting. I'd checked ahead and you can go round it either way, so I stuck to the right. There was now a single cloud in the sky—a huge stack of white right behind me that looked like it should be the steam from a power station rather than a cloud. After Mapledurham there's a long stretch of river that is bordered by a riverside road at Tilehurst, with smallish houses on one side of the road and their gardens on the other, facing the river. There's also a tiny wharf that leads up to a bridge over the railway tracks and a pub, although I forget its name.
Past a couple of islands (except that one is an Ayot, in the weird way they have of naming things on the Thames) and along a wide stretch of water that has a park on one side and you're in Reading and within site of the sweeping arches of Caversham bridge. As I approach I notice that there are felled trees in the park and on the sunward side they're wet, but in the shade they've still got frost or snow on them. I guess the air temperature hasn't risen all that much, even though it's warm in the sun.
Under Caversham bridge and past Fry's Island (and the Bohemian Island Bowls Club) then it's under Reading bridge (which had an ominously large container lorry directly on the span above me as I passed) and into Caversham lock. I've got there just in time to catch the lock keeper before he goes off duty for lunch, which suits me fine. There are a few other boats in the lock with me, so it's all a good use of water, although I suspect that matters less on the river.
Round the bend and past Better Boating and their super-cheap 86p/litre diesel and then I spy a perfect landing place next to the Tesco at King's Meadow. This is a perfect place to stop as I need a few supplies—tea bags especially—and I'm hoping that the petrol station might sell coal. This is a Tesco Extra, so it also has a café and I have a baked potato with cheese and beans. Very nice. Shopping itself is a drag, since the 'extra' in this Tesco seems to mean 'extra distance between things you want to buy', but I eventually get everything I want. I've forgotten to take the granny trolley with me, so I load everything back into the normal trolley and hope that I can sneak past the trolley point and get it back to the boat. I manage, but ironically have to bag everything up for the last few yards across the threshold and into the boat. It's not until I try to take the trolley back to Tesco that the perimeter brake thing kicks in and I end up having to carry the trolley the last 20 feet back into the car park.
While I'd been unloading, I'd got taking to Steve who is on the boat behind me. He's and his wife are liveaboards, who work here in Reading. He's a barber and had just become unemployed by falling out with the wife of the man who owns the shop he works in; who has turned 43 and is having his mid-life crisis, but Steve is being blamed for being a bad influence. He's not sure what he's going to do and fancies a change of career, and I understand what he's talking about perfectly. I ask him about coal and he says that Tesco's petrol station sell it, so I pop back for a look. They've only got three bags, which I load into another trolley, but the petrol station is clearly outside the perimeter too, and the wheels lock up. I shuffle it across to the store and transfer the coal to yet another trolley, which dies at the edge of the car park, but I can ferry the coal the remaining distance by hand and so I abandon the trolley where it stopped.
It's now 3:30 and I'm concerned about whether to continue my journey and where I'm going to moor. There are moorings after Sonning Bridge lock, so I head for there, but get through quite quickly. I decide that I can probably make it through Shiplake lock and around to the moorings at Wargrave before nightfall, so I head off at full speed. There's a cruiser behind me, that came through Shiplake lock with me and I keep expecting it to overtake, but it doesn't and stays right on my tail. There's another Ait (i.e. an island) called Hallsmead Ait coming up and Nicholson's says to pass it to the east—clear enough—but just before it there's a little collection of islands and I'm on them before I've realised that this is what they are. With no time to turn east and after a quick check of the map, I follow my existing path to the west and the cruiser follows. The channel narrows up a little and there's a big tree I need to swerve around, but I get past okay and it's not until I'm out of the islands and off past Hallsmead Ait that I realise that the cruiser is no longer there. I'm a bit worried, because it was much wider than me and might have got entangled in the tree, but I figure that I'll see it soon enough. I don't and it's only me that goes through Shiplake lock, just before sunset. I ask the lock keeper about the moorings and he tells me that they're a mile away, under the bridge, past the boathouse and on my right.
The light is really fading by the time I get past the boathouse that the lock keeper mentioned, and I'm thinking that if I can't see a mooring soon then I'll have to stop anywhere. Moorings on the Thames aren't like those on the canals. Often they're just a bit of bank that has had the vegetation cleared from it and this mooring is one of those. I head for it, trying to avoid the overhanging trees and while I have a good approach and land cleanly, the spacing of the trees means that the prow ends up in one. What is it with me and trees? The trees actually come in handy, though, because they're spaced exactly right to allow me to tie up to them, which is what I do. I figure that they aren't going anywhere.
Not such a cold night tonight, I think, and I'm feeling very tired. Dinner is a bowl of soup with some Tiger Bread that I bought in Tesco, followed by Tuna Pâté, again on Tiger Bread. I've got loads of food in now, but am too tired to cook. In the end I retire early, having not even written up my blog, so this was done the following morning while I was waiting for the rain to stop. I's brightening up now and the cruiser I lost in the islands has just gone past, so I think I'll get ready and see if I can get at least as far as the sanitation station at Hurley lock, because the loo is once again full.
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