River Thames - Oxford to Goring

We woke up excited, but also a little nervous as today we were heading onto the River Thames! 😀  

Isis Lock

We exited Isis Lock which takes you from the Oxford Canal onto the River Thames.  The locks from now on are electric.  The first lock on the Thames is Osney Lock and as this was not manned by a lock keeper, we controlled it ourselves.  The instructions are clear and once you have completed one, they are all very similar. 

The next 3 locks were manned by friendly lock keepers and found ourselves sharing one of the locks with 3 rowing crews from Denmark who were on a mission to row to Teddington.

  

 Abingdon Lock has all the boaters facilities here, it is worth filling up with water when you can as there are not a lot of places to do so.  We also purchased the Environmental Agency Licence here for the duration of our time on the Thames.  We were blessed with wonderful weather and thoroughly enjoyed our cruise today mooring  on the  Council moorings at Abingdon.

The moorings are really good, clearly marked and well maintained.  You can stay for up to 24 hours free, up to 3 days can be purchased from the EA. 

What a wonderful historical market town Abingdon is. Plenty of shops, cafes, pubs, etc and a large Waitrose.

Some advice to boaters - bring your binoculars!! you will certainly need them as most of the signs for moorings are small and difficult to read.  Luckily, just before Days Lock, we spotted a sign for a Bishops Court Farm (Thames Path) mooring which you pay for online [this particular one was £7 for the night] .  This was wonderful as it was such a calm evening and a very pleasant, private rural mooring.

Taken from Bishops Court Farm mooring

The following morning, we descended Days Lock and just a little further downstream there is an elsan disposal and bins on a pontoon which is easy to miss. 

We continued the following day, cruising through Culham Cut/Lock and Clifton Cut / Lock and saw some wonderful sights/homes along the way.

Great to see this  WW11 pillbox along the way, which had been painted to commemorate the brave soldiers in the war.

Clifton Hampden Bridge

We had  another wonderful morning cruise through to Goring where we moored at the visitor moorings just after Goring Lock.  Great moorings - free for the first 24 hours and good access to the town.

Visitor moorings Goring