We both still had trouble sleeping and were up early yet again. We were ready to go quite early and were chatting to the other boaters when the lock keeper Matt arrived early. I explained about the low pound above lock 9 and he went off to have a look, this resulted in a bit of a delay while some water was let down.
At 9.15 we were off, paired up with GM's Teasel again, but this time with reinforcements, well Phil H anyway, he didn't fancy going shopping for curtains and opted for a bit of lock wheeling instead. So, with 11 down to 8 set for us, down we whizzed, there was a boat coming up through 7 so we passed between 7 & 8, Barbara was having a bit of steering trouble this morning and messed up a couple of lock entries, but we exited 7 50 minutes after setting off, pretty good I thought.
The cruise to 6 (Woodham top) took about 90 minutes, it's a bit shallow and mucky through Woking, but at least the weed seems to be under some sort of control at the moment.
The weedcutter, obviously being put to good use!!
We arrived at 6 to see Phil again, he'd cheated and taken his bike to St John's in his car. A boat was coming up as we arrived and it had left all the locks set for us, so second whizz of the day and in no time at all we were locking down 1, it having taken us about 4 hours from Kiln Bridge, only possible because of Phil's (much appreciated) help.
Goodbyes were said to Graham & Barbara (they were heading towards Guildford) and at Woodham Junction we turned left onto the Wey and headed for Thames lock.
Coxes lock and mill on the Wey:
We shared the Wey locks with another narrowboat and soon enough were descending Thames lock and turning upstream for Shepperton lock on the Thames. It was a bit of a shock to see a number of other boats heading for the lock after all that isolation, but we soon got used to it. We filled the water at Chertsey lock, it was on 'self service' so I played lock keeper for a cycle while we watered, then Penny took over and we locked up ourselves. It was nearly 7.00 when we stopped on a mooring at Runneymede, both of us a bit knackered, we'd put a bit of a shift in today ad I wanted to be in Maidenhead tomorrow lunchtime to get a train home for a hospital appointment, looks like we'll still have to be off at 7 in the morning to achieve that, still, we haven't been sleeping......
A dinner of chicken and some stir fry and a long sit down, bliss. Oh, and a drink or two.
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