It was a bright and very fresh morning on the island at Kings Lock. The first job today was to take down the canopy (wet) and fold the windscreen down as we had a couple of low bridges to go under.
The river meanders back and forth as it crosses the flood plain to the west of the A34 so we could see the traffic on the dual carriageway long before you reach the bridge. Almost immediately after this bridge we arrived at a much smaller one, Godstow Bridge. Many boats have been damaged trying to navigate under this one, it's skewed across the river and the arches fall away sharply so it's very easy to catch the side of the boat going through. With Caroline at the helm (and me trying not to be a backseat driver) I had nothing to worry about of course.
Not long after we were passing through Godstow Lock, the first of the hydraulically operated ones (upstream of here they are all manually operated beam locks). The friendly lock-keeper had us on our way in no time.
The river became much wider as we cruised past Port Meadow, in stark contrast to the narrow reaches of the upper Thames.
It soon narrowed again though on the approach to Oxford and Osney Bridge, this is the lowest one (7' 6" at normal river levels).
We tied up briefly to put the windscreen back up, there are no more low bridges to worry about from here.
We shared Osney Lock with a lovely couple on a narrowboat who waved us by soon after we left the lock.
The river winds it's way around the western edge of Oxford, past the allotments, blocks of flats and terraces of little houses. Some parts look quite nice but there are others I wouldn't want to walk through at night.
The island at Folly Bridge is the last bit of Oxford to navigate through, the bridge spans both channels of the river here and on one side the arches are quite large but of course I decided to take the more challenging narrow channel, just for fun!
Next came Iffley Lock, on self service. By the time we'd set the lock and got our boat in I could see the narrowboat we shared Osney Lock with chugging towards us so I waited to let them pass through with us.
Not much further downstream we got to Sandford Lock, which is huge with a drop of 8' 10", again it was on self-service and we shared it with the same narrowboat.
When we reached Abingdon we topped up with fresh water before passing through the lock and mooring on the meadow. We put the canopy back up and headed into town for some groceries.
Later we moved the boat downstream of the bridge to shelter from the gusty winds, then enjoyed dinner at a local indian restaurant.
As we walked to the Indian Restaurant in Abingdon I captured this lovely photo of the low moon with a reflection in the river. I wish I'd had my camera with me rather than making do with the iPhone!
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