Osney Bridge to Radcot
We awoke to a slightly grey and cold morning, but we'd both slept well and were ready for todays 'challenge of the bridges'. The river was still running a little fast but the level under Osney Bridge was fine and we had inches of clearance (with the canopy and screen down of course!).
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| Osney Bridge (pronounced owsney not ozney) |
After a quiet cruise through the sweeping waters around Port Meadow we have Godstow Lock in our sights. One of the niggles we have with our boat is that when the canopy is down and the mid and rear canopy frames are laid back (think a bit like opening a pram hood) it means we can't use the rear transom door as they are in the way. So our solution for this is to pop the 2 frames upright and lean them together to form an A shape, then put a tie or a clip around to hold them together. We can then both walk under them and access the rear door easily, we do this all the time.
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| Godstow Lock |
Here we are at Godstow lock, you can just about see the canopy frame if you look closely.
The lock was on self-service but we were soon through and on our way to the next challenging bridge (can you guess what's coming??)
Godstow Bridge is more of a challenge than Osney Bridge. Osney is a bit binary - there's either enough room or there isn't and you can tell as you arrive (reverse out of it if yo have to). Osney has enough height, but the arches are narrow, the sides start closing in quite low down and the bridge is not perpendicular to the river, so you have to line up at an awkward angle! As we approached we could see nothing was coming the other way so I selected the left arch as it looked a bit easier to line up for. Got it in dead centre, part way through you need to make a slight adjustment to the right and then . . . KLANGGGGG, BANGG! Oh my god, what just happened? I felt sure I'd lined it all up OK and then, in an instant we realised that we hadn't laid the canopy frame back down after the lock. How stupid and annoyed did I feel! After over 30 years of boating without hitting anything and here I was with a mis-shapen frame and a broken fitting, the silliest of mistakes. Anyway, more of that later, I couldn't stop to do much about it right now. I was so annoyed I hardly noticed that we'd passed under the A34 road bridge (Oxford Bypass) and Kings Lock was around the corner.
At Kings Lock we chatter to the Lock Keeper and a chap on a hire boat - we both needed water, the next top up point was at Eynsham lock (the next lock up) so we agreed to let them through so they could fill first (Note that hire boats seem to be exempt from speed limits and it's better to have them in front of you in a lock rather than behind!).
We took a few moments to assess the damage and to take off the broken frame as it was now only connected at one side. The starboard upright was now a bit banana shaped and the plastic bracket that attaches it to the slide rail was broken, so not too bad (but obviously I needed to find a way to fix it before we could put the canopy up again). We put the windscreen back up as there were no more low bridges today.
This is the 'good' slide rail on the other side and the other picture is the broken piece from the other side.
We motored on, decided not to queue for water at Eynsham after all (new 'anti-syphon' taps make water filling a very slow process) and I decided to pop into Oxford Cruisers to see if they happened to have any canopy brackets. As it happened they were closed, it was like a ghost town, so no joy with the bracket but there was a fresh water tap that we took advantage of to fill up!
Pretty Pinkhill lock came and went, soon we were at the lovely looking caravan park opposite Bablock Hythe (looks like some nice moorings just by the Ferryman pub on the right after the caravan park).
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| Pinkhill Lock |
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| Caravan Park before The Ferryman |
Northmoor lock was next, no drama here and a little further up Newbridge - at least this time we wouldn't be able to forget to take the canopy frame down!
It was busy at Newbridge, a gorgeous sunny day now and plenty of people enjoying the river. As well as the usual motor craft (like ours and narrowboats) there were people out in canoes, pedalos, paddle-boards and dinghies! Caroline was at the helm this time and as she approached the centre of the arch she was spooked by the narrowboat ahead suddenly slowing and an errant pedalo - unfortunately this meant she lost the steering momentarily and we bumped the bridge arch with the port side of the windscreen. It was a bit of a hit but thankfully none of the glass panels broke so we just motored on, something else to look at later on. We now had a little souvenir of Newbridge to sweep away later!
Not our best day then. We both felt gutted that we'd dinged our lovely little boat, but we agreed that it could have been worse and that everything is fixable.
Shifford lock was next, the layby was slightly under water so thankfully we didn't need to get off the boat while we waited. It was the same again at Rushey Lock and again we didn't have long to wait so we stayed on the boat rather than go paddling!
There are some nice moorings on the field soon after Rushey Lock, so we decided to try to find an isolated spot as we wanted to run the generator for a while to top up batteries (without spoiling anyone else's peace and quiet). We ended up a mile or so downstream of Radcot Lock. I fired up the generator, we ate and I started to see what I could do in the way of temporary repairs. This amounted to sweeping up the mess and part dismantling the windscreen to see what damage there was. I did my best to straighten the canopy pole and I Araldited the broken plastic fitting which I then swapped with one of the forward ones as it will be under less stress there.
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| We actually got off quite lightly, this is not as bad as it first looked |
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| First time use of the new generator (LPG is safer to store than petrol) |
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| Just beautiful, this is what it should all be about |
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| A beautiful sunset on an otherwise frustrating day! |
21 miles, 7 locks today. 18l of fuel
Timings -
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