The first weekend in August saw us on our favourite run of the Thames down from Oxford and apart from a queue for water at Abingdon there were surprsingly few boats out on the river. Met up with Andy and Julie on Euclid and Jude from SPCC in Reading and then met the Shiplake regatta – things became more busy and a big queue at Marsh Lock which we declined to join and moored up on mud-weights on the offside above the lock and weir.

Hambledon Lock also gave us fun as two previous boaters had both tried using both the pedestals at the same time which had locked the computer system out. The skipper of a Salters Steamer got the lock working and we followed him down to Marlow where we used our cheeky space inside the stern of Hampton Court.

Kingston, Teddington, Brentford & Hanwell – with the compulsory stop at The Fox – followed before the final run to St Pancras, a 13 1/2 hour journey. We had been away for three days short of two months and had covered 700 miles of waterways and worked through 400 locks, survived Trent Falls and the record temperatures of over 35*C. An epic journey and one we are unlikely to repeat or surpass with our increasing age!

The link above 'Trip Log' may or may not take you to the full 11 page log of the journey, it does not seem to want to work with Chrome browser though!

Map showing our route on rivers and canals