Friday 20 July 2018

Henley and a few drops of rain!

We crept out of Sonning at 7am, no one else on the move.

Sonning Lock was busy yesterday.
It has a profusion of flowers and exudes a great air of friendliness.
It even has a coffee shop which we didnt take advantage of.   The towpath here is also busy with walkers.

Shortly after the lock on the right hand bank we saw that there was now a long stretch of Thames Visitors Moorings as are the moorings above the lock.  1 day free and up to two more days at £5 a night.  We are pretty certain that when we came through here last year there moorings had big NO MOORING signs up.   This morning they were full.

Stopped to water etc above Shiplake lock.. As we finished and pulled away for the lock a cruiser went just ahead of us.   We locked down together and since he had been ahead and was likely to go faster than us we let him go out first.  What a mistake.  He proceeded to go all the way to Henley at snails pace, slower than canal pace!  No point in overtaking him as courtesy would demand that we wait for him at the next lock.......

We took the first mooring space we say at Henley which was right at the far end of the moorings.

Probably a good job as when we walked down to the town later there were no spaces.   It is the Thames Historic Boat Rally this weekend which nearly put us off coming but there is no sign of it down this end.

A pretty little steam launch chugged by at quite a rate
This afternoon I took myself off to the cinema to see the new MamaMia film, very good it was too.  That`s two days on the trot for singing and dancing and pretty costumes. 

Whilst I was out Geoff reported that there had been a brief shower.......not much to write home about but enough for him to rush to get the washing in, only to have it stop as soon as he had done so.  

Skies looking ominous tonight but no further rain as yet.

We shall stay here for the weekend then continue further downstream to who knows where.

Total distance:5.72 miles Elapsed time:2h50m35s Locks:Bridges:2 
Average speed:2.01 mph (3.07 lock/mph) 


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