Hello Folks
On Friday as I drove to work I knew I would be paddling on The River Thame at the weekend and when listening to the radio I heard they were asking people to text in and say what they would be doing at the weekend.It was a simple matter for me to send a message saying I would be paddling my beautiful wooden canoe that I made myself at www.woodencanoes.uk and I had a small bit of free publicity courtesy of Vanessa Feltz and Radio 2. Now onto the trip itself.
This Saturday I went for a paddle with the (Thames Traditional Boat Society) and the W.C.H.A.(Wooden Canoe Heritage Association).
The members of both organisations (like myself) are all keen wooden boat enthusiasts so there were some lovely wooden craft on the water both old and new.
We were to travel down the Thame from Dorchester on Thames and then take a right up the river Thames to Clifton Hampden
The sun was out as we began to put our boats in the water.
Then we made our way down the Thame which was quite overgrown rather like the Waveney(see my blogs a few weeks ago).The river wound around a series of bends till we eventually passed under a bridge and emerged onto the Thames.
Once on the Thames we saw a few nice boats pass us by.
There was only one lock to negotiate and we were allowed to use it which saved us having to portage.
There were some lovely riverside properties and I particularly liked this boathouse because of the shape of its doors which were very bowed and would be difficult to replicate if they needed replacement.
Sam had his restored Chestnut on the water. You may remember it from my Beale Park blog before restoration.
We stopped for lunch by this bridge which is not far from the Barley Mow pub so we could also go for a drink.
Unfortunately the queue for the bar was huge so we only had one drink and returned to the bridge to take a few pictures before our return journey.
I'm not sure what the discussion is about here but it could be related to fishing or hats.
Once we were under way again we saw some even larger boats passing us.
Our final part of the journey was to involve paddling further back up the Thame to see a TTBS member who had offered us Scones but unfortunately there was a tree down across the river so we returned to the put in and those who had along drive like myself left whilst the rest drove up by road for tea and scones.
All in all a fine trip on a sunny day with great company. Thanks go to Susan Greenford for organising.
Cheers
Alick