Thames - Wargrave to Oxford

I'd forgotten how much we always enjoyed the Thames, the wide expanse of it, always lots to see, the fabulous houses and of course there are lock-keepers to do all the work.

In beautiful weather we slowly made our way on a fairly quiet river through Wargrave, Sonning, Reading, Caversham, 

Tilehurst and Maple Durham before mooring up at Pangbourne. A bit overgrown

but once I'd had the shears out -

It was Pimms o'clock .

I want one of these :)

Wallingford Bridge.

We moored for the night in a little hamlet called Clifton Hampden.

We set off next morning in the sunshine again. The journey on towards Abingdon was very quiet & rural apart from the Power Station which seemed to dominate the view the closer we got to Abingdon.

At one time the river was diverted to what is now known as the 'Swift Ditch'. This remained the main Navigation channel for over seven centuries until in 1790 improvements were made to the navigation at Abingdon & the river returned to it's original course.

We found a lovely mooring at Abingdon just by the Town bridge (can you spot us, we are behind the large blue & white boat?) and took a wander into town where we found a great little butchers - two sirloin steaks for a fiver & they were delicious. Wish I had a freezer on board.

Another sunny day dawned & we decided to stay put. Had lunch in the Nags Head, on Nags Head Island and watched life drift by.

From Abingdon we made our way to Oxford and moored on the edge of the city where we met up with nb Melodian which we had seen earlier at one of the locks. We had lunch at a local pub and then walked into town where we took an open top bus tour of the University colleges.

Linda & Nick from nb Melodian joined us for pre dinner drinks when we regaled each other with boating stories. 

The next morning we had coffee on Melodian before saying goodbye as we set off to meet up with Aria again.