Our new adventure, day 1

[Debs]

And so the journey begins! Day 1 of our three week cruise. We have been prepping the boat for the last few days to make sure that we had everything that we needed. Clothes, check. Beer, check. Food, check. Wine, check. Diesel check. Scotch, check. Water, check. Mixers, check. You get the drift! So, we set out early in order to get to the Thames lock on the Wey Navigation by 09:00. The sun was shining, the sky was blue and the world was a beautiful place! We only had one lock to manually do before the Thames lock and on the approach we saw lots of people milling around so "yes!" We thought, "someone is coming up the river, so my work will be halved!" Unfortunately, it seemed to be the local photography club who were not at all interested in helping with the lock. The only thing they were concerned about was that we might disturb the swans! Such is life! 

Eventually, we got down to The Thames Lock and met up with a really nice bloke who had just been up the Basingstoke canal. He told us that he could only go so far as there wasn't enough water in the canal. Apparently, the dead body that was found in a lock was only a minor setback on his journey.

We arrived in plenty of time at Teddington lock to have a bacon sarnie and put our waterproofs on as no holiday is complete without a spot (or total downpour) of rain! As we were entering the lock, the boat behind us had a little bit of an altrication with the Turk cruiser that was leaving the lock. Fortunately, no boat or human was harmed as a result. Anyway, "the tide was high and I'm holding on" (how many of you are thinking about Debbie Harry now?) we set off on the tidal Thames down the Brentford. All went without misshap today however, I believe you can now travel the full length of the Basingstoke canal as it hasn't stopped p#*sing down all day!

tonight, we have moored up at the bottom of the Hanwell flight and we are now in search of a pub to get some semi decent food!

[Dave Payne]

nice one! I really want to tackle the Thames next year..

[Debs]

From Teddington to Brentford is easy as long as you go when the tide is on the turn. We haven't done below that but we have been up to Lechlade several times.