5.5 miles 3 locks 3.5 hours

Leaving Runnymede yesterday morning

No sign of Sheena and Ken as we pass the visitor moorings

First lock of the day is Bell Weir, where

… if the lockie doesn’t like his job he would be doing a favour to boaters and Environment Agency if he found another one.  He’s ignorant, purposefully not making any eye contact or even uttering any semblance of a salutation and this was not the first time we’d encountered his attitude either.

Waiting to enter Bell Weir as we left

Under the railway/tube overground at Staines

Second lock of the day is Penton Hook and because of the situation of the lock boats should ‘cross-over’ and approach the top of the lock from the left of the river (boats navigate on the right) so we were a bit perplexed when this huge flat didn’t cross in front of us as we approached so we stayed on the right and he turned behind us to go into the weir stream.  The turn would have been too tight if he’d tried to do it any other way.

Self service at Chertsey Lock, George will need to make a tight right turn as soon as he exits the lock so that we can fill the water tank.

The lock house here is quite unusual being a bungalow

Motor tug Ash towing a huge flat through Chertsey Bridge

George had to go wide around him before turning back for the water

It was just after 1pm in the bright warm sunshine when we arrived at our destination on the visitor moorings about half a mile upstream of Shepparton where we sat in the front of Still Rockin’ with the sun on our faces to eat lunch.

 Off to the pub later with Kathy and John from tug Sirius.