Life's too Short: Day 6 - Time to Relax

Today we enjoyed breakfast with fellow Viking owners Vicky and Terry, with whom we'd previously only spoken to through FaceBook! It was lovely to catch up with them and exchange our boating stories, breakfast at Java made it even nicer!

It's an easy walk into town from the moorings on the park, through a part of Abingdon I'd not walked through before. Also handy if you need to fill fuel cans (the petrol station is just a bit further on past Waitrose).

We set off at 11:20 and decided to make for Wallingford as it is another of the Thames side places we like.

At Culham Lock we caught a group of 5 smaller boats who were travelling together from Lechlade to somewhere, we couldn't all share Culham Lock (slightly too narrow) but we did all squeeze into Clifton Lock (on self-service) soon after. It's amazing what you can achieve with a little cooperation!

Clifton Lock

Once through Days Lock we moored on the services pontoon to empty the pot and then managed to hit the overhanging tree branches as we left (reversed back out and made it round on the second go!).

As we approached Benson Lock we saw a couple leaving Le Boat heading towards the lock, it was quite clear they'd never done this before and once in the lock cut they simply didn't know what to do! I spoke to them and asked "what did Le Boat tell you to do?"

"They just said to drive down here and the lock keeper would open the gates for us"

I really felt for them. They were in a large boat for 2 people and Le Boat had not given them any instruction so how were they supposed to know what to do? They weren't even aware at what the lock was for! We, together with the ever-patient lock-keeper got them through OK, but we did worry about whether they'd enjoy their relaxing break on the river or not as they made their way on full throttle!

It wasn't long before we arrived at Wallingford where we turned around and pulled into a space on the town side. We did the right thing by pulling up close to the boat in front to maximise the space behind for someone else to moor. I don't know if we should have been so generous though as a narrowboat 'The Count' which was clearly too long for the space approached at some speed to try to moor and failed miserably, leaving some of his blacking on the rear of our boat. If I hadn't been on the bank trying to slow him down (along with one of his crew on a rope) it would have been much worse. We were able to relax once Bernadette arrived and moored behind us (the same boat that had been behind us at Abingdon as it happened!). A lovely 1950's wooden boat hired from these people https://www.bygoneboating.co.uk/our-boats.

We went for a walk around Wallingford (about half the town was suffering from a power cut!) and picked up 20l of petrol.

Back at the mooring we got chatting with our neighbours, one of the other couples moored along this stretch recommended the fish and chips at the Coach and Horses. Off we went, what a fab recommendation that was, we were pleased to have taken their advice! It was a lovely place to sit outside for the evening as well before the rain set in later.