Worst Mooring Ever

We finished our evening in Goring yesterday with a very pleasant pub meal at the John Barleycorn and set off this morning in high spirits through gorgeous Thames countryside at Basildon, then on to Mapledurham and the rather less pretty Reading for another quick waterside victualling.

Mind you, the locks are a doddle - even when the lock-keeper is away, everything is electrically operated and needs just one finger...

Then on through the afternoon to Henley, which is gearing up for its Regatta, and was very very busy – the rowing lanes are already marked off through the straight stretch of the Thames for the races and through-traffic like us is coralled over to one side. There's still far more width-wise space than on the canals, though! I get a bit agoraphobic on waterways like this when I am used to the Grand Union.

At this point, I think that the parking fairy might have been taking a half-day holiday. Visitor moorings in Henley looked tricky, with steep river banks and shallow edges – fine for a little river cruiser but not too accommodating for 58' of flat-bottomed steel. So we went on past Henley, confident in the knowledge that the Nicholsons Guide book showed ample mooring space beyond...

It turned out to be several iterations of shallow shoals with banks inaccessible from neither bow nor stern. After many tries we seriously considered deploying the Thames rule which allows you to drop anchor and stop anywhere for up to 24 hours – provided you don't touch the bank unless landowners are happy for you to put down. But one look at Annie The Dog with her quivering bottom lip and crossed legs made us think of higher things and we moved on to find a spot where we could run the bow aground and scramble off inelegantly.

The upside of all this un-developed river valley-scape is the wildlife – as we moored, a pair of red kite were wheeling and wailing in the thermals above us. Bats too, later on, although by then it was too chilly to be out to watch them for long.