Well, It Was Quiet!!

Hmmm... Windsor we thought! Seems like a nice place to stop! But more of that in a minute, now where were we? Oh yes, Marlow, it already seems a long time ago. Lots of activity this morning, rowers everywhere, I suspect the statue of Sir Steve here is responsible for some of them and most of the overnighters are leaving the moorings, as are we! A short trundle to the lock, and what's this? It's a queue!! Not seen one of those before. The lock filled, gates opened and out poured about 100 canoes, whatever happened to portage for such craft?

Anyway, in we went, lockie joking about Universes and the like, no idea why? And down and out we went, no sign of any damage to the bottom gate which was hit by my Tom last year. Passing the Longridge National scout boating centre we find our first regatta, rowing races, dragon boats, you know the sort of thing, then what looked like a 1000 canoes, some sort of army canoe marathon going on, then some sort of music festival at Cookham with many plastics in attendance, there was one raft of 4, had we known we may well have come here too, not that I'm a fan of Rick Astley, but I'm sure some of the others would have been worth a listen, maybe we'll take a look next year?

So, Cookham lock and another queue, not sure I like this, but down we go and along Cliveden Reach, I was born about a mile or so from here, the reach has some islands with the most idyllic mooring spots, really quiet and peaceful.

Looking along Cliveden Reach:

And before we know it Boulters Lock, probably the first lock I ever saw, and guess what? No queue!! A bunch of boats lock up, the gates open, the gates close again? There's a bit of commotion and rushing about, the gates open again and 4 or 5 boats come past, but one at the back remains? It transpires that the guy fell in and was now in his boat changing into dry gear, why his wife, who was driving the boat as it went past us couldn't have done this while he changed I shall always wonder, still a bit of excitement for once and a report for the lockie to fill out no doubt.

Onto Bray, passing another regatta and all the expensive houses, the Waterside Inn, Monkey Island Hotel and much more! Straight into a nearly full Bray lock, well it is now! and onto Boveney where we encounter a bit more confusion, no self service board up and no lockie!! I was signalled in by another boater to join the 2 plastics, big ones at that, a bit of a worry that we might no fit, but there was acres of space, well a couple of feet anyway.

Went for water at the bottom to find a pump-out and no tap, than looking behind saw it was in the weir stream at the side of the lock, so a bit of nifty reversing (or lucky if you prefer) against the stream and we topped off the water.

The final bit to Windsor, passing some wildlife:

And so to Windsor, we tie up on the Island just before the railway bridge, lots of boats of all sorts going up and down and all over the place, lots of people in the park on the island picnicking and stuff. great to see it busy.

One of the types of boat:

Off we go into town while it's all still open, about a million tourists to navigate around, but I cope quite well with them, do a bit of shopping and get a jacket I was after from Cotswold Outdoor, didn't know there was one here - honest! £40 off too!! Back to boat to find an enormous family camped out by the boat, a bunch of others shouting rather loudly, and as all the boats go by, well, we were rocking constantly, I was getting a bit fed up with it all, but eventually it all calmed down, people went home and normality is restored, I'll rethink any plan to stop here in future, a nice town, but on a sunny Sunday?

And to cap it all we incur our first mooring fee, not bad I suppose for our fifth day on the river, but £8 a night!!!

Today:    12 miles -     5 locks -     5 hours
So Far:   98 miles -   45 locks -    45 hours