Tuesday, 19 July 2016

A hot one!

 Just before 10 Sunday night all is calm
 7:15 yesterday morning starts a bit misty
 … but the temperature is already in the high teens as we leave our mooring at Medmenham
 Sue checking behind her as she’s ready to pull out into the stream
 Chris on fuel boat Merchant covers a large area of the Thames
 Sue had told me that it was a Swiss banker who uses the Sikorsky helicopter which flits back and forth along the river on an almost daily basis from its parking slot across the river from our mooring at Medmenham and now I wonder if this is the bankers home at the impressive Culham Court.
 Some nice properties with well kept gardens on this reach
 Hambleden Place would once I think have been one residence but now looks like it’s semi-detached!



Left here for the only lock of the day



… Hambledon, the lock is on the left and the weir stream heading towards us from the right.
  
A lock full of boats coming out as we slow to tick-over waiting for a gap so that we can pull over to the lock landing




Oops, last but not least before we enter!

 NPXL is tucked behind us and with a cruiser alongside - a tight fit!  The lock is a side fill (as opposed to gate sluices) but today the lockie is operating the flow very gently.
 Holding on!
 Keeping clear of boats waiting to enter as we leave the lock
 We soon arrive at Henley with the obligatory photo of Temple Island built as a folly in 1771


The river here still has the boom in situ from the recent Regatta so all vessels going down stream are to our left so we don’t have to worry about oncoming traffic as we keep our eyes open for a mooring




The Magna Carta Hotel Boat and an interesting boat approaching
 WOW!
 What’s that then?

The Henley Traditional Boat Rally finished yesterday but there are still a few nice boats about as we approach
 … the town
 Lovely residences about the old boathouses in the sunshine

Henley Bridge, Tamesis faces us as we cruise upstream and Isis as I look back down the river
We don’t have many hot sunny days like this in the UK
 Views from our mooring in Henley opposite Rod Eyot,
… above looking back
 … and forward
… and directly across the river Island Cottage is for sale … 
a cool £795K and it’s yours!

4 comments:

Sue said...

Yes, that's the fella Carol and the pic you have is Culham Court which he bought for £35million in 2007. There is a very interesting read in the Henley news paper..

http://www.henleystandard.co.uk/news/news.php?id=1093487

I wonder what a 'ha-ha' swimming pool is? The mind boggles!!

Carol said...

Interesting article Sue! A ha-ha is a way of building a barrier/fence without blocking a view. A deep terrace/drop is put into the land like an ‘L’ shape and it’s called a ha-ha. The story goes that it was called that in times of outlaws as it made it difficult for them to reach the property or if the outlaws were running away they’d not see that the land drops away and the owner would laugh when they fell - hence ha-ha! Not sure how true that is though!

Vallypee said...

The Thames looks gorgeous! I think I might like it better than all these flights of locks on the smaller canals. Just shows I'm basically lazy! We never have to do our own locks over here!

Carol said...

It is gorgeous Vallypee! I’ve been following your cruising adventures in France and you seem to be having a great time out there.