Thursday 5 July 2007

Sunshine.

12 Locks, 6 Miles. Now moored at lock 74 Hungerford.
501 locks, 610½ miles, 18 Tunnels, 28 swing bridges and 9 lift bridges since Nov 2006


With the sun on our backs we set off for Hungerford where our visitors Brian and Mavis leave us tomorrow ready for their return to New Zealand on Tuesday. Thank you both for your company and help and we are glad you enjoyed the Caen flight even though it was wet.

There were some white wispy clouds to start with but as the day wore on dark rain clouds started to creep up on us with occasional showers. We made good time due to only a few other boats moving.
As we reached Hungerford church swing bridge the Diesel barge and butty arrived on the opposite side of the bridge. After brief discussions he moored up and we pulled alongside him for fuel. After we had taken on 153 litres Derek on Kalimera moved up and he took another 143 litres so we left the diesel man with a smile on his face with such a large unexpected sale.
Just a little further on we moored up for the night where we plan to stay for a couple of days. The diesel man had told us that he had planned on going to Reading but due to the river Kennet running high and fast he turned around and decided to head to Bristol instead. If a local boatman won’t tackle the river in its present state we would be crazy to try it ourselves. We may try to get to Kintbury on Saturday and see how that goes before we commit ourselves to go any further because once we are on the river we are committed with no going back. We have some spare time up our sleeves so we can take our time and hopefully it will stop raining shortly and the river will calm down.

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