From the keyboard of Dr Jan

Our first year we went up the Grand Union Canal and just about got outside the M25. Kings Langley is where we turned around.

Last year we went the other way, along the Regent’s Canal to the Hertford Canal and then up the Lea Navigation and the Stort River to Bishop’s Stortford and then Hertford.

This year we had toyed with the idea of going to Aylesbury, which is a bit further up the Grand Union than Kings Langley (we’re much better at boat driving now though, and we were confident of making it there and back in the 9 days we had available). We were very keen to use the Thames River from Limehouse, at least as far as Brentford where it joins the Grand Union. Martyn had bought a special VHF radio and been on the how-to-radio-properly course and everything. All boats on the tidal section of the Thames (up to Teddington Lock) have to have a VHF radio in case of emergencies.

The plan was to get to Limehouse Basin on Friday night, ready for an 11:00 passage through Limehouse lock on to the Thames on Saturday morning. The timing is critical because you need the tide to be doing the right thing when you go

Friday night was the first night of the Proms, so I wasn’t able to help Martyn get the boat to Limehouse. So, he didn’t get there until the early hours of the morning, having single handedly managed all the locks from Kings Cross and having become grounded for about an hour on the way.

Martyn’s comment was that he couldn’t be dealing with any more locks (which seemed fair) so we should carry on down the Thames and aim for Oxford.

So that’s what we did

14th July - Saturday

For the journey from Limehouse we had some passengers, including Cliff, an experienced Thames cruiser. The river at Limehouse is very wide and was rather choppy, to say the least. However it soon settled down as we approached Tower Bridge and was relatively smooth from there on.

The main hazard on the Thames was other craft - it was damn busy, and most of the boats were substantially larger than our 6 foot wide and 67 foot long narrow boat. You had to keep a lookout behind as well as in front of you because we were also one of the slower vessels.

It was totally fabulous cruising all the way through central London, an extremely interesting experience

We stopped at Teddington lock to buy a license for the Thames from the Environment Agency, and for a pub lunch. We eventually disgorged our passengers at Hampton Court, where the railway station is reasonably close to the river.

We stopped cruising at about 20:30 after 28 miles and 3 locks at Moseley Reservoirs. 31 lock-miles.

15th July - Sunday

We kicked off from Moseley Reservoirs about 11:00 (the International Cruise Start Time) and ended up at Windsor and Eton about 20:00. We stopped for lunch at Chertsey and had some jolly fine roast beef. 16 miles and 7 locks for 23 lock-miles.

16th July - Monday

We started at 11:00 from Windsor and Eton and got to Henley on Thames about 20:30 after hunting for a mooring for ages. We lunched in Maidenhead with a mega-ploughman’s at the Thames Riviera Hotel. Once we started approaching Henley on Thames, all the public mooring spaces had signs to say the cost of mooring was £6 per night. We eventually had to moor opposite a sign saying ‘No mooring’, but it looked like it was stuck on top of the £6 a night sign. Given that the Henley Regatta had just finished we assumed that the ‘no mooring’ sign just hadn’t been taken down yet. We had a visit first thing from a nice chap collecting rent, who explained that if we had been there the night before it would have cost us £50! Fortunately we got away with just £6 20 miles and 8 locks giving us 28 lock-miles.

17th July - Tuesday

We slipped slightly and didn’t leave until 11:10, after some shopping in a handily close Waitrose supermarket. By 20:00 we were at Wallingford after 25.5 miles and 8 locks or 33.5 lock-miles. We lunched on board with some sarnies we had acquired at Waitrose.

18th July - Wednesday

11:10 departure again, but we arrived in Oxford and had parked up just above Osney Lock by 18:00. We were right opposite a pub, which did food and was recommended by the lock-keeper, Ray. We were both a bit knackered, so we had a little snoozette. When we got to the pub just before 20:00 it was to be told that they stopped serving food at 20:00:-( So, we were forced to walk into Oxford town centre, and happened to come across Gino’s restaurant. Which had just the most amazingly good food. Easily the best food of the cruise and heartily recommended. 20.75 miles and 8 locks for 28.75 lock-miles.

19th July - Thursday

We installed the 2 new domestic batteries that we’d been carrying on board since last week. They are like butch car batteries. Unfortunately, the connection terminals were reversed, compared to the old batteries. Which meant that we had to walk to Halfords for a new battery lead. Fortunately, there was a Halfords just down the road.

Once we had sorted all that out, we cruised under a very low bridge (we had to take the chimney down, but it’s easy to do) and up to the junction with the Oxford Canal, where we were able to turn around. “Wind” is the technical term. Martyn only ducked for the bridge on the way back when I warned him We decided to stay at the same moorings we’d started from for the night.

20th July - Friday

Despite the heavy rain, we really had to start our journey back to London. Martyn dressed up in his wet weather gear which comprised of waterproof trousers and his very butch and armoured motorcycle jacket. I was wearing my swimming trunks

Martyn was driving and I was hiding away from the driving rain inside the boat when Martyn ‘walkie talkied’ me to say there was smoke coming out of the engine! He turned the engine off straight away, but we were still travelling at quite a pace. So, we had to do a crash landing into the bank. When I dashed outside, it was to see Martyn lying on his stomach on the bank with his arms outstretched above him grasping on to the centre rope, being dragged along the bank by the boat! Looking at the flattened grass later on, he was probably dragged about 20 yards before coming to a stop.

After securing the boat with 3 lines (fore, centre and aft) and having a calming cup of tea we had a look at the engine. It turns out there is a small fan-belt which drives the secondary water pump which pumps the water round what is effectively a radiator inside the bottom of the hull to cool it. The fan-belt had pretty much disintegrated, and that was causing the smoke.

So, after a fruitless trip to Halfords (”what model of car is it for?”), we eventually found a motor factor on a nearby industrial estate. We got there just after 18:00, and it had shut about half an hour earlier.

Martyn said that the experience of stopping the boat had left him feeling the same way he had after having an accident on his motorbike.

It was sometime during the day that we realised that the river was getting higher, and when we checked with the lock-keeper, there were red boards up indicating that it was unsafe to travel on the river, due to the strong current.

21st July - Saturday

Martyn zoomed off on his bike to get a selection of fan-belts, and we fitted the one closest to the right size.

Due to the incredible amounts of heavy rain over most of Southern England, but particularly the Cotswolds, the River Thames broke its banks at a number of points.

So, given that the boat wasn’t going anywhere in the near future it was decided that I should get the Oxford Tube bus back to London.

I left Martyn and the boat and zoomed back to Hillingdon station, where Ruth picked me up and whisked me off to the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall.

On Sunday, some people from the marina in Kings Cross came to visit Martyn and between them they managed to turn the boat around, so that it was pointing in to the flow.

The river burst its banks, but fortunately the boat stayed within the channel. Thank goodness

Martyn was stranded for over 2 weeks, and is only now back in London.

See for yourself

Follow this link to Canalplan AC and you can “Plan a Journey”. Enter the start point as “Limehouse Basin” and the end as “Osney Lock”. Select the “Calculate Route” option and then make sure that “Tidal Rivers” are set to “Neutral” rather than “Dislike”. Then “Calculate Route” again and scroll down to the bottom and select the “Virtual Cruise” button to follow the route on Google Maps with photos where available. It’s very nearly as good as being there