Heading slowly upstream

Still travelling slowly to cater for my trips to London.   The train journeys are a little longer now so I am only going down once a week but staying 2 nights.   WE left Henley on Thursday (6th) and a rather early hour, just before 7am and decided to stop in Sonning on the moorings before the lock. 

En route we stopped briefly to shop at Tesco where we were surprised to find plenty of space on the new moorings outside and not a sign of a mooring restriction notice anywhere!

An interesting sign at Sonning

If we had gone through the lock to the Thames visitor moorings we could have had one free night but these mooring looked so inviting we stayed,  

 Another early start on Friday to make sure we could get a mooring in Pangbourne Meadows.

Bridge before Sonning Lock

Good choice of mooring places as we were early but sadly no TV picture so there was moaning from the skipper!!

We were positioning ourselves so that I could take the 3 grandchildren out for the day.  Luckily Boe is now nearby and she came to assist!  She also is running our little second car at the moment so that made it very convenient.  Emma (who was not coming!) had suggested Legoland near Windsor which seemed a good idea.   Some preplanning was required and we managed to acquire the wherewithal to get 1/2 price tickets which was great, this meant the balance could be spent on their Q jumping tickets.   Without these the day would not have been as successful.  

Giles dropped off the children at 8am at Pangbourne station and we caught the train to Maidenhead where Boe collected us.

I even went on most of the rides, but have to say that Legoland is not a patch on Disney.  To be fair my memory of Disney Florida may be a little ancient.  Emma, Boe and I went there for 2 weeks 22 years ago!   It was fantastic.......

  

Luckily we had prepared ourselves with picnic food to snack on through the day.  If the cup of Cappuchino I purchased was anything to go by the food would not have been great!

Boe and I stayed over to babysit whilst Giles and Susannah took the opportunity to have a night away all on their own.  

Later on Sunday Geoff was collected and we all had a family supper.  

Today, Monday 10th was moving on day, but a much gentler start.

Just as we reached Goring Lock, 2 narrowboats appeared just ahead of us.  Luckily the lock is long enough to accommodate all of us.

Goring Lock in company

Looking across from Goring Lock

We then proceeded at snails pace up to Cleeve lock.  It seemed rude to overtake for such a short distance but it was painful!  Cleeve Lock was on Self Service so Geoff hopped off to help as the other two boats were single handing.   We then had trouble getting in as the lock is shorter than Goring Lock.  However by persuading them to shuffle up a bit and putting ourselves diagonally across behind them we managed it.

To our great delight the other two boats stopped to water above Cleeve lock

Wallingford was a lot quieter than when we came down so found a mooring easily.

Total distance:10.35 miles Elapsed time:2h53m45s Locks:3 Bridges:5 
Average speed:3.57 mph (4.61 lock/mph)