Inspector Morse Territory

Monday/Tuesday 6/7th Sept 2010
Abingdon to Oxford
8.75 Miles 4 Locks.

Monday. We have been closely watching the weather forecast for this week, hoping to try and avoid the rain. We left Abingdon at 10 o'clock and went through Abingdon Lock, this lock has a full set of services so once through it we moored by the water point and waited for the boat in front to fill their water tank, on the Canals boaters use their own hose pipes which they connect to the taps, on the Thames the hoses are permanently fixed to the taps and are a large diameter, even so it still takes ages to fill, whilst we waited I emptied the Cassettes and Jayne got rid of the rubbish into the skip.
An hour after we had arrived we were off again, the weather was still bright but windy, we arrived at the next lock, Sandford, and waited by the lock moorings for the Lock keeper to open the gates, when he did he indicated for us and another Narrowboat behind to wait while a large trip boat from Salters Steamers went into the Lock first, when they were in and secured we were waved in. Sandford Lock at nearly 9 feet is the deepest Lock on the Thames above Teddington, in contrast the next Lock, Iffley is one of the shallowest at 2 feet 9 inches it was also showing the self service sign as it was lunch hour for the Lock keeper, after we had worked ourselves through the Lock dark clouds were overhead so we decided to moor up on the Environment Agency moorings above the lock, the first two attempts were aborted due to it being to shallow but the third time we were successful, the forcasted rain arrived at 5 o'clock and stayed most of the night.

Moored up early on Monday to avoid the rain.

The First Mate checking on me.  The strange object on the roof is a Hedgehog on a Motorcycle, more about him later.

Tuesday. Nice bright start this morning, it was decided over breakfast to move to the moorings above Osney Lock in Oxford so that we could have a look around.

There were a lot of Rower's going past the our moorings on Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning, some on there own, some doubles, fours and eights, we assume they were members of the Oxford University rowing club which we had past.

University Boathouses

We found there was plenty of room on the Moorings so after a cup of tea we set off around Oxford, we didn't have a visitors map so just headed towards some spires we could see through gaps in the shopping area, we ended up at Christ Church meadow with a view of Christ Church Cathedral

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Christ Church Cathedral viewed from the Meadow.

The moorings here are free for the first 24 hours then £5 for the next 24 up to 72 hours, after that they have had enough of you because it then goes to £50 for 24 hours, we have decided that there is a lot more to see here so will stay another day.