Much cooler and cloudier today, and it even looked as though it might rain — although it didn’t. Macc had a final run around at Castle Meadows and then we detached ourselves from the high wall and set off just after 9. There wasn’t much point in going earlier because the locks only open at 9.30 these days, and when we reached Benson Lock we were a few minutes early. The Thames Path crosses the weir here, so I had time to go and have a look at it.
There really wasn’t much water going over the weir today, proving that water flows are pretty low. At least the lock was already empty, so when the lock keeper opened up we could go straight in and up.
At Benson the Le Boat hire base had no boats in at all. Not surprising perhaps as it’s August and the Thames, but it’s still pretty rare to see a completely empty hire base. We were soon going under Shillingford Bridge, and then round the sharp bends overlooked by Shillingford Court.
Every now and then the sun made an effort to come out, but the main weather feature was that it was very windy. Along the next stretch there’s a Thames Path bridge where the River Thame flows into the Thames. There wasn’t any visible flowing though.
There’s a sharp right hand bend before Day’s Lock, with a bridge that goes onto the lock island. We’d caught up with a little blue boat that had similarities to a Thames Boat we hired in the late 1990s. It turned out the lock was on self service, so there was no lock keeper to limit lockings.
Above the lock we were looking for a mooring. A few boats were coming off the lock island moorings which are at the top of the weir. You have to do a slalom round the Danger signs, which I didn’t fancy in a boat our length. But you can also moor at Bishop’s Court Farm again; we moored here back in 2011 and really liked it, but for a while the farm was owned by someone who stopped all mooring. The strong wind was fortunately in the direction that it blew us into the bank rather than away from it.
After lunch I took Macc for a walk and we went over the lock cut bridge and up a hill and found ourselves in Little Wittenham. The church there has a turret up its tower, and a Star of David over its door.
There’s also a path leading up the Wittenham Clumps, the distinctive hills with trees on top. However, Macc is still too young for long walks like that.
As we came back to the boat I let Macc off the lead and he found a bit of wood in the river which he then raced about with. There’s a lovely field right next to the boat and there’s no-one else here so it’s a bit like having a big garden. He was completely exhausted by the time he’d finished. I then headed off again to explore the village of Dorchester — this one in Oxfordshire rather than Dorset. There’s a footpath which leads past the Dyke Hills, an Iron Age earthworks built between the Thames and the Thame, to protect the villagers. They are very impressive embankments, and reminded me of the Devil’s Humps up on Kingley Vale at home.
In Dorchester itself I went to the Abbey, which is very large for the size of village and has a museum alongside.
The village itself has lots of very nice houses. Some of them are thatched, and some have nice gardens.
There’s also a real sense of community. It seems the village Co-op closed recently, but its windows have big signs explaining what’s being done to get someone else to open a replacement shop and a number of measures in the meantime. Another sign says the property has been let.
I then walked up to the farm which owns the moorings we’re on. There’s a very well advertised cafe there which sometimes is also listed as a farm shop. However it’s much more cafe and hardly any farm shop. However, there are big explanation boards about what’s being done to the farm since it changed hands. The previous owner didn’t just stop people mooring, he also put up miles of barbed wire and stopped access to the footpaths. The villagers petitioned Oxfordshire County Council to make a large area a village green, and then a new owner came along and is doing a lot to improve the farm, diversify, and become part of the community. I certainly don’t begrudge them the £10 mooring fee.
As well as the cafe there’s a hall used for Pilates classes and music events, and as well as cattle and sheep there are horses, goats (used for wellbeing sessions, apparently!) and alpacas you can trek with.
The wind has kept blowing strongly all afternoon, so we’re hoping that drops. There have also been quite a few boats passed, both up and down the lock.
5 miles, 2 locks, £10 mooring fee. (66 miles, 25 locks, £114.50)