A walk along the river at Henley ...

Long time no see ... apologies ...

Sunday morning (19th) we had minus degrees again and the Thames was still rising ...

Monday morning and you can see that the river has subsiding a little.

It was a lovely day and we thought about walking into Henley but decided that the fields and towpaths would be well under water and muddy so caught the bus instead.   

We walked down Hart Street to the river path ...

to Henley Bridge  where the river was running fast and furious.

A few snippets of information ...

The word 'Thames' comes from the Celtic word 'tamesis' which means dark river and Henley's first flint and stone bridge (with wooden arches) was built around 1170 (Henry II).  The current bridge was built in 1786.

Looking away from the bridge we could see that the river had flooded the pathway in some places ...

we walked round the Hobbs office building and the large trip boats and looked back towards the town with the parish church of St Mary's in the middle distance

This lucky narrowboat has found a good place to sit out the high water and red boards

Looking upstream (left) and downstream

George has walked ahead ...

and the river water is lapping his shoes as he reads the notice on the gate ... it would take a foolhardy driver to attempt to!

A good zoom lens comes in handy!  The information board is titled 'Henley from the Wargrave Road 1698

Looking upstream towards the lock and weir (left) and back towards town again

The owners of this widebeam have a long stride to reach the path over the water which a few days ago must have reached well into the grassed area.

Ice still on the puddles

It was cold but bright with a wonderful sky as we continue towards the lock and weir bridge

A 5-second video showing how fast the water was flowing

I wouldn't want to walk on that!

we stepped carefully through the water here ...

but this was definitely a no-go area!

We turned around and made our way back into Henley to do the shopping and returned back to Still Rockin' on the bus.

Tuesday (21st) was once again very frosty ... these pictures are of the 'windows' of the canopy over the stern deck ... but that sun gave us a promise of another good dry, bright day!

And the river levels are still dropping!