Out of Jail.

7 Locks, 6½ Miles 1 swing bridge. Now moored at Reading
533 locks, 637½ miles, 18 Tunnels, 37 swing bridges and 10 lift bridges since Nov 2006

The time had come to make our exit from the K & A which has had its moments both good and bad. After farewells all round with Maffi it was hi ho silver, up, up and away. The weather was fine with plenty of white clouds but no sign of rain; hopefully we had all that last night.
On our journey to Reading it became clear as to how high the river had been when we came onto the river 6 weeks ago. The tide marks on bridges and walls showed that the river had been at least 18 to 24 inches higher. Today the flow on the river was a mere pussy cat compared to our trip up river.
The only problem we had was at County lock where somebody had left a note to say that the lower offside gate wouldn’t open fully and the lower towpath side gate would only close if somebody with a bit of weight sat on the balance beam while somebody else closed it. BW has been informed.
When we reached Blakes lock there were some teenagers helping 2 solo boaters into the lock. They asked us our boat lengths and said you’ll fit and opened up the gates again to let us in. Sure enough all 4 of us fitted in quite snugly. Once all the locking had been completed the teenagers just hopped the fence and were on their way again. Just goes to show that there are some decent teenagers out there. Thanks for your help guys.

As we entered the Thames I had swung wide due to the sand bar on the top bend and as I did so we found a huge trip boat bearing down us. I did a quick change of gear into reverse and he swung wide to pass across our bow. A cheery wave between both parties and we were under way again.
We only travelled a short distance to just above the Tesco moorings and found a gap in the trees between boats where we moored up and Kalimera is breasted up against us. The moorings here are chocker block full with even plastic fantastic’s and gin palaces breasting up 3 deep.
We plan to stay here until Monday when Derek & Christina will take their boat over to Reading Marina, just opposite the K&A, where they will leave it for a week
whilst returning to Devon for a christening and weather permitting we will start making our way to Oxford.

Sunset on the Thames tonight