After a reasonable night's sleep we were up and moaning about how cold we were.
"It's just like camping" Caroline complained as I was trying to work out why I couldn't get the heating or hot water to fire up, we must be out of gas I assumed, not looking forward to going out to the cockpit to change the bottle. I swapped the gas over but still couldn't excite either system into life. A cup of coffee would have to do for now. We'd planned to get going as early as we could today in order to reach and maybe pass under Osney Bridge, so at 09:00 we went through the checks and I fired up the engine, except it didn't start, it barely turned. The battery was as dead as a dodo, as flat as a pancake. Bugger. I couldn't understand why as I'd switched over to just one battery when we arrived at Wallingford (after being on both for the whole trip) and now I tried both and just the other battery, but neither option would turn the engine over.
As I was about to see how the 'emergency pull cord' option worked a helpful chap called Rusty came to my aid, he was in the boat moored next to ours. Rusty is the 'river rescue RAC type fella' and he had a huge Halfords battery that very quickly jump started our little engine and we were away by 09:40.
It was a cold, damp boring as we motored along and soon we were through Benson Lock (on self service) and looking for a space to pull in at the Benson Boatyard to get a replacement gas bottle, empty the loo and to have a hearty breakfast at the Waterfront - but there wasn't a chance of getting in, the place was rammed with Le Boat's fleet, all stern on taking cup every inch of space, so we decided to make do with a bacon sarnie and to sort out the gas and loo later on.
Next up Days lock (manned), Clifton (self service but helped by the crew of 'The Hippy Boat'), Culham (manned) and we were at Abingdon Bridge Marine by13:30 to change a gas bottle. Luckily for us the chap at Abingdon noticed that the bottle wasn't empty! I'd assumed it was because I couldn't get the heater or hot water to work earlier - but in fact this was due to the flat battery all along!
We made use of the the sanitary station after Abingdon lock and continued on our way by 14:00, by now enjoying some sunshine.
We managed Sandford lock by ourselves, then Iffley and Osney were both manned. We were moored up about 100 yards downstream of Osney Bridge by 16:40.
We took a stroll into Oxford and enjoyed a lovely meal at Jamie's Italian before heading back to watch The Apprentice!
Tomorrow we have to remove the canopy and fold down the windscreen in order to safely pass under Osney Bridge, we should have about 8" of clearance which sounds like loads!
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| Osney Bridge 7'6" |
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| View from The Bridge |
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| Goodnight! |
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