Day One
Blondes and Swans
The last view I had of my wife was of a slim blonde figure on the river bank at Teddington lock waving energetically like a piece of fluttering bunting. As the distance between us lengthened and she grew increasingly more diminutive, I felt a pang of sadness. A kind of aloneness at the thought that I would be spending the next five days on an adventure that she wasn’t participating in, from which I alone was deriving all the enjoyment.
She stood there waving, colourful and familiar in a turquoise fleece top and white slacks, looking lost and lovely as I pulled away from the river bank in my kayak. I was headed up the Thames for Lechlade in Gloucestershire. Against the current. Don’t ask me why. It had sounded good in the pub at the time and once I had made up my mind, I didn’t give it a second thought. It was a trip that had been a long time in the planning. I had covered practically every mile of the Thames at weekends in the summer in anticipation of this day. Except for the Teddington lock stretch.
Teddington lock. That wasn’t right for a start. As the biggest lock on the Thames, Teddington lock isn’t just one lock but three locks side by side. All the others, except Sunbury as I was soon to discover, get by perfectly well with only one lock chamber apiece. But not Teddington. It has a Barge lock, a Launch lock and a Skiff lock. This was one of the first and least expected items of information I was to learn on this voyage of discovery.
The Barge lock is against the London bank and is long enough to fit 12 average length narrow boats in a row. The Launch Lock, so called, I suppose, because it takes launches, is a standard-sized lock directly in front of the Lockkeeper’s cottage and is the one most commonly used.
The Skiff lock, if you can call it that (Martin, the assistant lock keeper, did), takes, well, skiffs, I suppose. And canoes, kayaks and sculls. It’s for when the other two locks are sitting idle and a paddler, rower or sculler comes paddling, rowing or sculling along wanting to be let through. Why waste eight million litres of Thames water in the Barge Lock on someone in a plastic kayak? Or 2.2 million litres in the Launch lock? Hence the Skiff lock is brought into play. It fills with a piffling fifty-six thousand litres of water in only three minutes and is so narrow I wouldn’t be able to use my paddles in it.
However I didn’t use any of the Teddington locks as I started my journey. That’s because I launched from a floating pontoon twenty metres upstream of all three locks. This blue metal platform was chained against the London bank at the end of the little lane we had driven down to get to the towpath. With my car pulled up beside it, I was able to lift my kayak off the roof rack and directly onto its deck. My kayak was bright orange, long and pointy. Like a carrot. So had named it ‘Karot’.
There were three wooden steps on the pontoon to make the transition from the tow path less of a drop. I lurched down these with the Karot bouncing on my knee at each drop. Even unladen, the four metre boat was unwieldy. I had inadvertently lifted it off the car pointing the wrong way, so had to turn it around to point upstream before I laid it down on the steel decking. This was unfortunate. My wrist twisted as the long craft swung around, causing a twinge of pain to shoot up my arm that made me curse. Good start, I thought. Once I had lain it lengthways along the pontoon in anticipation of the final drop into the water and flexed my sprained wrist, we began packing it.
‘We’ being my soon-to-be-abandoned wife, Carolyn, and our reliable friend, Senan, erstwhile owner of our local pub in my village in Buckinghamshire.
It had been a real problem finding someone who would commit to driving me to Teddington on the day I had planned. Before I had thought of Senan, I had asked everyone else in my address book with a Buckinghamshire or Berkshire postcode but they all displayed a polite reluctance or pleaded a prior engagement. With no other choice, I had reluctantly asked my London friend, Jerry. I say ‘reluctantly’ because it was such an imposition expecting him to come all the way out of London just to drive me all the way back in again, that I had felt really guilty calling on him. But I had no other choice and, of course, Jerry willingly agreed.
Then along came Senan who lived not much more than a quarter of a mile from my front doorstep. Senan hadn’t occurred to me because until recently he was gainfully employed in the IT industry. Then I found out he suddenly wasn’t. His contract had come to an end. As a result Senan was, as he so eloquently put it, between jobs at the moment, so had nothing better to do.
“I’ll do that! Of course I will!” he volunteered when he had heard about my dilemma. “If it means spending time in your car with your lovely lady wife, wild horses couldn’t keep me away. Now, when’s it to be, what’s to be done and how much does it pay?”
I heaved a sigh of relief. Thanks to Senan, backed up by a willing Jerry, the trip was back on again. Carolyn welcomed Senan’s offer with the same relief as myself. With eyesight that had long since succumbed to the affects of diabetes, Carolyn, of course, is unable to drive now. Which was why I was using this trip to raise money for this hardworking and thoroughly worthwhile charity.
Stowing my possessions for the next six days in the waterproof compartments didn’t take long. In the rear compartment I neatly stacked the three large waterproof bags containing my sleeping bag, my big beach towel and a roll of clothes so I could look reasonably civilised when I stopped at pubs and campsites along the way. I also stowed two smaller waterproof bags containing electrical bits and pieces such as a radio, torch, batteries and toilet bag. On top of all this (it was the larger of the two holds) I squeezed in the plastic swimming pool lilo I would be using as a bed. Once the items were in place, I crimped the waterproof rubber lid shut around the rim. On top of this hold, I tied down the pop-up tent that would give me shelter for the week.
In the forward hold I put two plastic shopping bags of food and my drink bottles containing water and a sugary ginger cordial to quench my thirst and give me much-needed energy along the way. I also sneaked in two plastic bottles filled with my favourite whisky in case I didn’t get to a pub every night.
‘Bloody hell Andrew, you going to the Antarctic or something?’ Senan quipped. ‘I bet Scot didn’t take that much.’
‘Yes, but look what happened to him,’ I replied as I tucked my maps and laminated itinerary under the stretchy ropes on the deck in front of me. I had cut four sheets of the Ordnance Survey Landranger series of maps into strips to act as my route guide and had sealed them in a waterproof plastic sleeve.
All that was left was to say my goodbyes and leave. It wasn’t as if I was going to get a fanfare or a Red Arrows fly-by, so I hugged Carolyn and shook Senan’s hand, thanking him yet again. I swung the heavy craft off the edge of the pontoon and dropped it into the water below. Sitting on the pontoon above, I lowered myself carefully into the seat with a sense of relief that I didn’t embarrass myself this early in the proceedings. Like an aircraft, where take-off and landing are the most tricky parts of a flight, so too is getting in and out of a kayak. Especially getting out after five or six hours of knee-numbing cramp spent paddling.
And so, after fastening my splash guard around me, I pushed off into the still stream and paddled my way across the river to take up my line along the right bank. On the rivers and waterways of the world, all vessels travel on the right. ‘Port a port’, they call the manoeuvre in which you pass an approaching vessel with your port side facing the opposing port side. Overtaking is different. Just like on a road in Europe or America where the overtaking vehicle uses the outside lane. Although I didn’t think that would apply to me. I didn’t anticipate doing much overtaking.
As I passed under my first bridge, albeit a footbridge, a short way up the lock cut, I twisted in my seat and waved back at the two receding before they were cut off from view. I could imagine Senan saying, “What’s that madman doing? Why can’t he rattle a tin outside Waitrose like everybody else?” Carolyn would be gazing after me, eyes moist with love and pride. “He’s my hubby. That’s what he does,” she would reply.
I paddled along the gently curving right bank, past moored pleasure craft and families of swans that glided over to greet me. Soon, Teddington’s three locks and my two well-wishers were out of sight. I looked ahead at the first of the big bridges coming up. By now, I had settled into a steady rhythm with each paddle dipping and pulling with a comfortable ease, powering me forward through the glassy water – leaving a satisfying ‘Vee’ behind.
The sun was in the sky, joy was in my heart and I had a whole day ahead of me. The sinking sense of separation I had experienced as I was pushing off was now being replaced with the uplifting feeling of freedom. I savoured the strangely familiar dank green odour of the water. It was an evocative smell of my childhood. Innocent times spent splashing in bush streams in New Zealand. Happy hours spent sitting on the harbour wall in my home town with a line and hook lowered expectantly into the muddy waters of the tidal estuary below. The splash of salty spray from the surf of an ocean beach. I loved the smell of water.
I played along the surface, close to the right bank and began taking in my surroundings. I passed a small island. I noticed several imaginatively named boat clubs: the Thames Sailing Club, the Thames Rowing Club and the Thames Canoe Club slid past. Soon, the commercial buildings of Kingston lined the banks while leisure craft sat complacent on the edge of the river. Turning, I could see small dinghies and tenders bobbing gently on my wake. I passed under Kingston railway bridge, just as a train rumbled overhead. What kind of a coincidence is that, I asked myself? Isn’t that supposed to be good luck? Like stepping on a butterfly or walking under a black cat or something?
However, by the time I passed under Kingston’s road bridge a short way ahead, with its hum of cars and red double-decker buses, three more trains had used the railway bridge behind me – so I figured the odds weren’t that astronomical after all.
Not wanting to miss anything important, I leant forward and consulted my itinerary on the deck in front of me. This ‘itinerary’ was a series of A4 sheets of paper I had researched, written, printed out and laminated. It was full of distances, times and interesting facts I had compiled throughout the summer. All it told me at this stage was that I was two miles into my trip and that the Kingston road bridge was first built in 1828 then widened in 1914 and again in 2001. I suppose that will do for a start.
I looked around for something to capture my interest. Names of boats suggested themselves. I slipped past ‘Fair Maiden’ moored against the bank. It was a faded off-white old pleasure craft with cracked hull and ruptured grey fenders hanging limply along its sides. The proud vessel of a not-so-proud owner who obviously spent more time talking about owning a boat on the Thames than caring for it. I saw many craft in far from ‘fair’ condition that made me wonder why. Why spend all that money on mooring fees, fuel, fitments and maintenance then leave it rotting on some obscure mooring on the Thames?
Some craft were new, others ancient but nevertheless more cared for. Names glided by like a litany to man’s aspirations. ‘Morning Glory’, ‘Proud Mistress’, ‘Perfumed Garden’, ‘Dream Lover’ – all seemingly testifying to something that couldn’t be mentioned at home. Others echoed the humour of their owners. These were often imaginative and inspiring. ‘Piston Broke’, ‘Cirrhosis of the River’, ‘Eyemin Charge’. Names that needed thinking about, then a brave commitment to actually have them painted on the sides of vessels that would have cost the owners tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of pounds to buy.
I was aiming for Old Windsor lock that night. According to my well-researched itinerary, it was twenty one miles and seven locks on from Teddington. I had told Martin, the assistant lock keeper at Teddington, what I was doing. He seemed politely quizzical about the upstream part of my venture. ‘Most people do it the other way,’ he said. It was to be a typical comment on my expedition from those I talked to along the way. I asked Martin if he would phone ahead to let the lock keeper at Molesey know I was coming. This, for purely selfish reasons. I thought that it would help me get through the lock without having to wait for a larger, more visible vessel to approach. And it would also give me a degree of status that I thought I needed as a lone paddler.
“UP the river?! Wow! Congratulations. You are brave. And for charity. Well done.” I imagined these bored custodians of a monotonous job would welcome the distraction as they opened the lock gates to let me through.
Nevertheless, for all my careful planning, there was always the nagging worry that some lock keepers would get complacent and not bother opening the gates for me, as if it wasn’t worth the effort for such a small craft. The problem was, if I was told to portage over the lock, there would be nothing I could realistically do. After all, isn’t that what these cleverly-planned portage ramps were for? Well, yes and no. Yes, if there was, in fact, a portage ramp. No, when there was only a steep flight of steps up from an impossibly high mooring bank. Then a long haul along a lock that could be anything from fifty to a hundred metres long. With an unloaded kayak, maybe, but I was painfully aware that I couldn’t realistically carry my fully-laden Karot any great distance, let alone haul it up a flight of concrete steps. So if I could gain the goodwill of as many lock keepers in advance, I would. And that meant talking to each as I passed through their care and convincing them I was a decent bloke on a mission of charity who deserved to have his way ahead smoothed for him.
The day continued intermittently sunny and cloudy as I plunged on down the great southerly sweep of the river, past boat houses and apartment buildings while sharp-winged sand martins wheeled and dived overhead, skimming the surface of the river for a gulp of water. It took me just over an hour to reach the base of the southerly loop by which time I was aware of the vast expanse of Hampton Court gardens cradled by its embracing curve on the right. Apartment buildings and boathouses had given way to a low concrete wall which lined the river from here on up to Hampton Court bridge (built in 1933) a mile ahead. No buildings peered above its horizon nor tree intruded over its banks. The well-laid lawns, ingenious topiary and magnificent maze lay beyond. The monotonous churn of my paddles all but a background melody. Carolyn and Senan would be home by now.
To think, I mused, over four hundred years ago, a corpulent king had sailed up these very waters on his royal barge to escape a plague in London. Farting and belching, his royal fatness had heaved his syphilitic body onto a mooring ramp and had his rotting flesh transported to the palace for another orgy of drunkeness and debauchery away from the prying eyes of his court. And his wife. Or at least that is what I liked to imagine. Ah, I thought, isn’t history wonderful. Mostly it was grubby, grunting and gory. Blood and power. Sex and politics. Sometimes little actions effecting big changes. Such as a single gunshot in Sarajevo in 1914. Other times it involved bigger undertakings such as the invasion of the Kent coast in 43AD. But there is hardly a spot on this land that doesn’t celebrate some event in history. This particular spot had more history than most. Architects and artists, barons and barmen, courtiers and courtesans, kings and queens all came to Hampton Court. It was permanently staffed like a small town. It rose in glory as a symbol of a king’s vanity and wealth to rival similar extravagances in Europe.
Opposite Henry the Eighth’s holiday hideaway, just before Hampton Court bridge, my notes told me that the River Mole enters the Thames on the left as a little stream. As I slid by, I observed it briefly between two concrete walls and a cluster of moored boats. This little stream ends its happy life here, as a mere culvert emerging into the muddy waters of the Thames. It is a sad end to a joyful journey through the leafy vales of Surry, where it has been twisting and turning through a sylvan landscape of picturesque villages and tidy towns. Winding past cottages and rural pubs, fields and woods. Until it arrives here, lost in the inevitable anonymity of the big city. Nothing surviving of its charm and character except for its name confused in the name of the suburb where it ends its heroic little life.
I arrived at my first lock at Molesey at a quarter past ten. I had left Teddington at five past nine. Just over an hour as I had expected.
As I approached the open lock gates, I automatically increased my stroke rate in case they were just starting to shut. Will I or won’t I be in time to get through? If they are shut, will the lock keeper or won’t he, open them? My orange kayak, red life vest and yellow paddles would be hard to miss. The lock keeper obviously saw me coming and obligingly opened the gates. It was a nice day and he probably didn’t mind standing at the end of the lock looking down the empty river wondering what he was being paid for.
“Thank you,” I shouted cheerily up at him as I glided, small and insignificant, into that dank chamber. He pushed the button that closed the gates behind me and I hovered mid-stream towards the back of the lock. This was the best place to be. A position far enough back where the on-coming rush of water through the front sluices had weakened and wouldn’t twist and turn me every which way and where I could control the boat midway between the two slimy walls.
“Did Martin down at Teddington call you?” I shouted as he passed me to walk to the top of the lock where the controls for the head sluices stood.
“Yes, he told me to expect you,” he replied. I was impressed.
“Great. Thanks. It’s just that I would have difficulty portaging. I’m loaded up with a week’s provisions and the boat’s a bit too heavy to carry.”
In fact, there was a proper portage at Molesey. A roller ramp that I would have been able to negotiate if obliged to. I didn’t want to, however, as I felt I had just got into the kayak and was nicely settled. The sluices ahead let in the waters in a great underwater surge that erupted onto the surface ahead of me. With no other vessel in the lock, it was easy enough to keep the front of the Karot pointed directly upstream and not be twisted sideways. I was raised silently upwards until I could see the clean cut lawn and hedges of the lock island. As the turbulence lessened, I paddled slowly forwards to where I drew level with a strange topiary on the left bank. A small tree shaped in the form of a laughing face. Once the water levels had equalised, the lock keeper pressed the button that opened the upstream gates.
“Someone’s got a sense of humour,” I said, indicating the tree.
“That’d be the wife. She’s handy that way.”
“Quite a tourist attraction. Do you get funny remarks from boaters?” I replied as I took out my camera and took a quick photo.
“All the time. It’s the most photographed shrub this side of Hampton Court.”
“I hope you don’t charge for it.”
“I’ll let you off. How far are you going?” he asked.
“All the way,” I replied. “I’m heading for Lechlade then on up as far as I can to Cricklade. It’s a solo paddle for charity. Here, here’s my charity card.” I fumbled in my life vest and handed him one of the dozen or so little cards I had printed off with the address of my fundraising website. He leant down and accepted it.
“Have a look at it. It tells you all about me,” I urged, as if he would be interested.
“Thanks, I will.”
“Are you Steve, the lock keeper?” I asked, wanting to make it sound as if this was a professionally-planned event.
“No, I’m the assistant lock keeper. Steve’s back this afternoon,” he replied.
“Oh, OK. You couldn’t phone ahead to Sunbury for me could you and let the lock keeper there know I’m coming? It would help if he was expecting me.”
“Sure, no problem. Good luck. Have a nice day,” he offered as I shot out of the lock into the calmer waters beyond like a horse from the starting gate. The small pause in the lock had rejuvenated me and I felt a new energy having conquered this first obstacle so easily. I glided on up the loop of the river in a nor’ westerly direction with a slight breeze coming over the waters from my left, insistently pushing me sideways. I increased the power on my right paddle to compensate.
I spent the next hour passing big islands lined with large houseboats. Many of the houseboats were floating on permanent moorings. Others were anchored to the river bottom on piers; legs of concrete and steel that held them inches above the water. They were fully furnished and ready for occupancy, yet looked tired and empty. As if they were recovering from a summer season of parties and picnics.
I also passed small islands covered with small houses; pretty, chalet-style cottages fronted by tidy lawns. Like a replica Lilliput representing a rural idyll only just far enough from London to pretend it is, indeed, rural. Each house frontage of this dainty paradise was decorated with exotic plants in quixotic urns on little paved patios that reached to the water’s edge. They were planted up with Phormiums and Cordulines from my native New Zealand, now so popular in the northern hemisphere. All very neat and pretty.
As I approached the prow of one small island, whistling the chorus from March of the Toreadors (as I do), I saw ahead a pretty blonde lady watering her plants. She was enjoying the sunshine and fresh air in her little haven on the tightly-packed island. She saw me coming and straightened up and waved. I shouted hello, nice day for it, referring, of course, to her gardening.
“Isn’t it,” she agreed. She brushed a strand of hair from her face and smiled at me with what I liked to think was encouragement and admiration. “You look as if you are enjoying yourself.”
“What’s not to enjoy?” I smiled back. “The sun is in the sky, the ducks are on the water and all is well in the kayak.”
“You look well-equipped, where are you going?” she asked.
Ignoring the obvious innuendo, I replied: “Lechlade in Gloucestershire.”
“Ooh, I know Lechlade. I love Lechlade. It’s a lovely village. I’ve got an aunt in Lechlade.” She had a happy, open smile, lightly freckled cheeks and very pale eyes. With the sun glowing off her crisp white shirt and blue jeans, she looked like a yummy mummy in a washing powder commercial.
“Have you? What a coincidence, ” I replied. “It is lovely isn’t it. I’ve done quite a lot of paddling up there. I’ll say hello to her for you if you like.” I was holding my position on the water by now, not four metres off her riverside lawn and enjoying the conversation.
“That would surprise her. I’ll tell her to look out for you.”
“I should arrive on Friday afternoon. I’ll push on to Cricklade on Saturday and return,” I told her.
“Will you get there by Friday? How far is it?”
I checked my well-researched itinerary.
“Forty four locks and a hundred and twenty-seven miles,” I replied.
“That’s fantastic. Well good luck and maybe I’ll see you then.”
“Tell her my name is Andrew,” I shouted back as I resumed paddling with what I thought was an impressive, muscle-rippling power stroke. I surged ahead and over to the right bank to take the channel at the back of Platt’s Eyot. I turned in my seat and saw her standing there staring after me, empty watering can hanging by her side. Who is she, I wondered? What is she doing in a little chalet on an island on the Thames? It was Monday, shouldn’t she be at work?
One of the advantages of this little craft was that I could explore backwaters and channels behind islands that were, perhaps, only navigable to manpowered craft. I passed the blue ‘Channel’ sign pointing to the left of Platt’s Eyot as I ventured into the alternative channel on the right. At the back of the eyot and out of site of the pleasure folk were rough working yards and marinas with none of the genteel refinement of the previous residential Thames. Derelict iron structures and dilapidated buildings wasted valuable residential real estate on the eyot itself. I glided past in cool shade to emerge in the main channel a couple of hundred metres upstream.
I was being spoilt. Sunbury lock had a roller portage too, but I didn’t use it. With two locks side by side, it was also a double lock. I pulled up in front of the one closest to the left bank. Apparently the lock keeper here had been informed by the assistant lock keeper at Molesey that an idiot in an orange kayak was on his way upstream.
“Yes, he called me,” he shouted. “Said you’re going all the way up. Most people do it the other way!”
“I know,” I said, thinking I’m going to have to get used to this. “But where’s the fun in that?” I was feeling fit and notorious. I had put on a final spurt of speed as I neared the lock when I saw a pleasure boat entering a hundred metres ahead and I feared the lock keeper would shut the gate before I arrived. However, it had stayed open until I had passed through and I was grateful. I stretched my arms and flexed my sprained wrist as I sat in that cool chamber chatting to the people on the pleasure boat. It was an anonymous blue and white gin palace for all the family. A large jolly woman was holding the aft tether while her husband, a mature man of military bearing in a tight grey pullover with epaulettes, held the forward rope. I held on to a dangling tender. Most of my conversations started with: ‘Nice day for it,’ and this one was no different. It sounded the right pitch of casualness and inquisitiveness. You can chat back or ignore it as a mere pleasantry. The jolly woman agreed but added that the weather was on the turn.
"I hope it holds," she observed. "It’s been nice so far."
“Where have you come from,” I enquired.
“Just down there, Teddington,” she replied.
“Me too,” I continued. “Going far today?”
“Oh, we’re going up to Shepperton,” she replied. “Where are you going?”
Exchanges like this were fairly typical of my journey in the early days when I was actually talking to people. For me, they served the purpose of letting me know I wasn’t going ‘bush’ and that I still maintained some shred of civility. I imagined myself in days to come, bearded, mosquito-bitten, thin and reedy with arms like Popeye and communicating in salivating grunts when confronted with a fellow human.
But perhaps not. I had packed a razor after all.
With a promise from the lock keeper to phone ahead to Shepperton lock, I surged out of the upstream gate with a cheery goodbye to the lock keeper and to the jolly woman and her military husband. The blue and white gin palace for all the family overtook me further along the long sheltered lock cut and I rolled precariously on its trailing wake. Upstream wakes are much more uncomfortable that those of boats coming downstream. Downstream wakes pass quickly and I am only left with the smaller ripples that bounce off the river bank and slide under my hull unnoticed. Because I am travelling in the same direction, upstream wakes take longer to pass and I surf their small crests and roll sideways for some time after the boat has motored on ahead.
The four mile stretch to Shepperton Lock started with a steep southwest run followed by a series of wiggles surrounded by a confusion of backwaters, side streams and reservoirs. At least it looked confusing on the map and I just hoped I kept on the right channel. By my reckoning, it was another hour’s paddle, by which time I would be ready for something to eat.
I passed bungalows and boathouses, swans and sailing clubs. Marinas opened out into the channel from left and right and the day remained fair. I continued paddling southwest for another mile until I came to the ugliest bridge I had ever seen. It was at Walton and it was a rusting, riveted metal monstrosity of a bridge that looked as though it should have fallen down years ago. I ducked under it, holding my breath until I was safely out the other side, wondering who bore the shame for its construction and continued presence.
I glided up the long, dank corridor of the Desborough Cut. This was a manmade shortcut to Shepperton lock that avoided the twisting wiggly bits I had observed on my map. At the end, the blue ‘Shepperton Lock’ sign hoved into view and I only had to pause by the mooring bank for a few minutes while a boat entered from upstream. Then with a satisfying whoosh, I saw the water churn out of the downstream sluices. Two boats came through and motored gently past to their next destination with a wave and a nod.
Shepperton also surprised me with my first female lock keeper. Or assistant lock keeper, as my well-researched itinerary noted that the actual lock keeper was another Steve. So whether this was Steve’s wife or a summer temp, I don’t know, but she was cheery enough and had also been forewarned by Sunbury Lock of my coming. I asked her if there was anywhere on the lock island I could pull up and have lunch and she suggested the other side of the lock where there was a pub.
“Just through the gates on your right, love, you can’t miss it,” she said. Then added, “so you’re going upstream. Most people go the other way.” As she stood there, finger on the button powering the gates open, she looked as though she wanted to add: “Are you sure you know what you are doing?”
I left her my charity website card and thanked her as I pushed through the gates and entered a large basin with a thundering weir to my left. Expensive houses lined the river bank and weir island. On the right was a stretch of grass and, as I rounded a slight bend, there was the Thames Court pub with its tables and chairs and lunchtime businessmen sipping diet cokes and virgin Marys in the chill sun. I glided to a halt beside the low wall in front of the pub, praying that my first exit from the Karot would be uneventful. It was, luckily, and I afforded the idle audience no spectacle except that I sat on a small nettle growing between the cracks of the paving which gave me a warming glow on my upper leg.
It had been a morning of steady paddling. Of observation, conversation and elation. I passed inquisitive swans which sailed gently towards me, trailing grey fluffy cygnets, hoping for a morsel. Ubiquitous mallards took off and landed in a flurry under blue and white skies reflecting off a dank green Thames. Cormorants avoided me, while coots hooted in alarm before fluttering and stuttering across the water leaving a trail of splashes like a small outboard motor. Wood pigeons regularly flew across my path and a grey wagtail had erupted from the bank near the weir at Sunbury lock and fluttered in undulating flight to find shelter further up.
For lunch on this first day, I had the luxury of a store-bought sandwich, still fresh in its plastic container. Barely had I sat on the public seat overlooking the river and taken the first bite, than a couple ambled up and began chatting to me. They had seen me get out of my kayak and thought I looked harmless enough to approach. That was encouraging. I thought I looked quite weird in my bright yellow and red water gear. I shuffled along and offered them a seat. He sat with his little white dog on a lead while she stood and fiddled with her camera. It was a large expensive affair, heavy and black, with little pouches on the shoulder strap containing various items of photographic wizardry. The normal conversation about the weather revealed that it wasn’t, in fact, sunny enough for them as they were shooting the weir. By this, they didn’t mean, shooting the weir in a canoe as in ‘shooting the rapids’, but photographing it. She was a professional photographer and was getting the shots for her client, the construction company that built the weir system. Her name was Ros and his, Vince. The small white dog, I was proudly informed, was Muppet. I felt an interesting conversation coming on, so welcomed the company.
“No, I’m not a photographer, just her duty slave,” Vince elaborated good-naturedly. “I arrange everything and make sure she gets everywhere on time.”“Shame you can’t arrange better weather,” she observed. “We’ve been here all morning trying to get some sunny shots, but it’s not looking too good. We might have to give up soon, can’t wait much longer.”
I agreed about the dodgy weather. “The sun comes out occasionally though,” I offered hopefully, “but I suppose you have to be on the spot waiting for the exact moment.” I told her I had worked with many photographers in my career, which elicited the question of what I did. I explained that I was in advertising and marketing, self-employed, and had art-directed a few photographic shoots in my time. Which led on to what I was doing on the river, why upstream, surely most people go downstream etc etc.
We sat there observing the weir island, along with the weir itself and the footbridges that crossed various channels at oblique angles.
“My client has rebuilt the weir system and walkways over the last few years,” Ros informed me. “The project included reinforcing the banks all around the island and along the far side for the residents. They didn’t have to pay. It was part of the agreement with the Environment Agency.”
I considered the engineering company’s unlikely altruism as I looked at the new reinforced banks in front of me, thinking these will last a good few decades. But nothing is for free. There’s always something in it for someone, usually the big boys at the top.
Dragging little Muppet along on the retractable lead, Ros and Vince left me to take advantage of a spell of sunshine for some more photography. I put my rubbish in a nearby bin and slipped down into the Karot without mishap. It was twenty five past one. Feeling fed and fit, I pushed off for the second leg of the day’s journey. Chertsey lock lay two miles ahead. Based on my morning’s performance, that would take thirty to forty minutes.
I was at the bottom of the Thames. This loop at Shepperton was the lowest point, the most southerly part, of the entire length of the river. It would be uphill for the next ninety miles to King’s lock near Eynsham in Oxfordshire, where I would celebrate being at the most northerly reach of the river. Along the way, there were a few southward loops and turns that would get the sun off my back and into my eyes. However, I had to get today’s twenty one mile stretch under my belt first. I was looking forward to my first night’s camp. Between me and Old Windsor Lock lay Chertsey, Penton Hook and Bell Weir locks.
I paddled around several more loops and curves to get to Chertsey. I was looking forward to my first motorway beyond that. Passing under the M3 would be followed by the M25 that day, then the M4 tomorrow. These were important landmarks in a trip which would otherwise be defined by locks. As it transpired, going under a motorway was not an earth-shattering experience.
The wind started to pick up in irritating gusts after Shepperton. At first it was on my back, pushing me northwest, but then in my face as I turned down the south west stretch of the river with Chertsey Meads on my left and parkland on the right.
On up to Chertsey Lock, with a gusting breeze in my face, where I asked the lock keeper, as always, if he would mind phoning ahead to Penton Hook. “Sure,” he replied casually, and I popped out the top of his lock. It was five past two. My timing was spot on. A few hundred metres ahead was the awesome M3 bridge, my biggest bridge yet. To celebrate the event, I went to great pains to take a self-timer photograph of myself underneath it. This involved pulling up against the concrete wall under the giant steel arches, taking my camera out of its waterproof sleeve, rummaging around under my splash guard for the small tripod and placing all strategically at head height on the bank above. The trick then was to press the aperture button and push myself away from the bank to look as if I was casually paddling past at exactly the same time the thirty second delay clicked the camera. It worked. At least to the extent that I was the right distance away and somewhere in front of it grinning like an idiot as the camera flashed. When I checked the photo, it was all right. I was coming into shot on the left and the arches curved above me like the vaulted roof of a gigantic wine cellar. That would do, I thought, wondering if I would do it all over again for the next two motorways. To be honest, it wasn’t that impressive. Nothing from the river really is, except the river itself. I had no sense that thousands of tons of metal thundered above me. I had no idea what they could see on their horizon from their high up position. All I knew was that, according to the notes on my well-researched itinerary, Laleham Golf Club was on my left and Laleham Abbey off to the right as I slid in a nor’ westerly direction to the hook at Penton that gave the area its name. All I could see was the river bank gliding past. A duck’s-eye view. Or a swan’s-eye, perhaps. But no more. There could have been naked girls dancing around maypoles in those fields but I couldn’t see past the towpaths and grassy banks.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t go around the eponymous hook at Penton because a cut had sliced through the neck to set it adrift as a kind of man-made ox-bow with an impassable weir throttling one throat. So I sliced up the main channel and into the first lock where the lock keeper hadn’t heard of me.
“Didn’t you know I was coming?” I enquired.
“No,” he replied.
“Oh,” I was disappointed. “Didn’t the guy at Chertsey call you to let you know?”
“No.” He was obviously a man of few words. Perhaps the lock keeper at Chertsey was afraid of him.
“Oh, OK. It’s just that I’ve been asking each lock keeper to phone ahead to the next lock to let them know I was coming. I thought it would help you guys if you knew in advance that I couldn’t portage with my kayak loaded up like this,” I explained disingenuously.
“It doesn’t matter. Wouldn’t make any difference. We’d still open up for you.”
“Oh, I thought you might expect a kayak to portage if there was no other boat coming through.”
“Not if you didn’t want to. It’s our job.”
“That’s a relief,” I replied, and relaxed a bit. “I’m on a charity paddle up the Thames to Lechlade,” I added by way of explanation, and to forestall the inevitable ‘Most people do it the other way’.
“No problem,” he said as the gates opened and I was out the other side. It was three o’clock and I began fighting a gusting head wind which is a nightmare for kayakers. When it’s strong enough, the wind catches the paddle and wiggles it awkwardly before it comes down for a misplaced stroke. Also, there is a greater resistance than I would have thought on a body in a streamlined craft. So it became a bit of a slog, that stretch on up through Staines. I was bent forward for much of it trying to eke a few metres out of each pull of the paddle, noticing how slowly the river bank moved backwards beside me. Old people walk with shopping trolleys faster than this, I thought.
I passed between high rise council blocks; 1960’s monstrosities finished in various shades of white and terracotta as if splashing a little Mediterranean joy into the grey landscape of London suburbia. A teenage couple sat on the right bank, engrossed in some private conflict. He was pleading his case and her body language was saying no. When I glided past, she looked at me with bored eyes and a sigh. He was a tormented, spotty youth begging for forgiveness of some drunken misdemeanour and was too focused on his mission to notice me on mine.
I finally reached the railway bridge at Staines followed by an arched stone road bridge built, it said, in 1832. There was a small respite from the gusting wind between that town’s buildings.
The only reason I knew it was Staines, was because I had a map. There are no signs on the river informing me where I was aside from the obligatory ones the Environment Agency put up directing you down the correct channel and towards a lock. And sometimes even these are absent. I have come across a fork in the river, or an alternative channel, that may or may not simply go around the back of an island and rejoin the main stream further up. But I’m not to know from my swan’s-eye position, so I usually opt for the widest channel and hope for the best. So far, I haven’t had the misfortune of paddling for hours up a backwater before confronting a weir and having to go all the way back downstream again to join the correct channel. I wasn’t looking forward to that day.
Passing under the M25 was a watershed for me. Up until now, I had been in virgin territory, but from here on I was more or less on my home patch. Runnymede, Windsor, Bray, Maidenhead, Marlow, Henley, Wargrave, Sonning and even Reading were all local to me. I had friends, family and clients in these towns and I had spent many a day trip in the Karot along these stretches of water throughout the summer.
I decided not to take a photo of me grinning under the M25 overbridge. It looked much the same as the M3 overbridge with its featureless steel arches. It was also a bit like my local Marlow bypass, but on a bigger scale, so it didn’t offer me anything special in the way of an architectural experience. However, a little way ahead of the M25 bridge, Bell Weir Lock certainly surprised me. It was four o’clock as I slid between its hulking gates. I was the sole occupant as the gates swung shut behind me.
“You might want to hold on,” the lock keeper shouted down at me. “Grab the chains.”
“I’ll be OK,” I replied, wondering why he thought I looked like a novice. “I can control it better in the middle.” I positioned myself mid-stream midway along its length, as always waited for the gurgling rush from the underwater sluices ahead. It was a particularly large lock. In fact, the walls were nearly three metres high and the cavernous chamber was well over seventy metres long. Compared to little Shepperton lock, at only about fifty metres long, that was impressive.
“Suit yourself,” the lock keeper said as he opened the sluices. As expected, the water welled to the surface behind the head gates and the disturbance moved towards me. Then something I didn’t expect. I casually dipped my paddles gently in the water each side of me to keep steady. Then, unexpectedly, a second rush of water exploded directly under me. It was like riding a geyser. I was twisted and turned in all directions and had to work my paddles furiously to prevent myself from losing control. The turbulence continued for a long, frantic minute. Finally, the foaming eruption subsided as the levels equalised. I moved down the lock to confront the lock keeper.
“Wow! What was that?” I asked as I drew level with him. “What was going on in the middle there? I haven’t seen that before.”“I warned you,” he smiled. “They’re duck sluices. Channels that run behind the walls on both sides and open halfway along the lock beneath the surface.”
“Blimey! That was fun,” I said. “What are they for?”
“Oh, just to operate the lock faster. We’re quite a big lock here and it speeds up the filling.”
“Are there any more like that?” I asked.
“Romney’s got them. It’s the only other one that does.”
I noted in my journal that evening that I was in my ‘first bit of country’. Although somewhat manicured, green fields and parkland opened out before me after Bell Weir lock. However, the sky had darkened and the low cloud was taking on an ominous hue.
I was in familiar territory at Runneymede. Historically, this was the birthplace of the nearest thing the British have for a constitution. It was here that King John signed a piece of paper imaginatively call ‘the Big Charter’ that acceded rights and privileges to that deserving and downtrodden class, the barons.
I could smell the damp in the air as I crawled that last three miles from Bell Weir lock to Old Windsor. There was a stiff wind and it became a bit of a struggle as I continued on upstream between trees and fields. I scarcely noticed the world around me. A road hugged the river on the left and up ahead was my first campsite and respite from what was becoming a long day. Staying close to the right bank, I pushed past Magna Carta Island and on up beside lush trees until the green gave way to a towpath lined with houses. That’s when it started raining. Thin, drifting drizzle of no great volume to concern me, barely a mist, but nevertheless uncomfortable.
It was exactly five o’clock when I pulled up at Old Windsor Lock. I had phoned the assistant lock keeper a few days earlier to book my place on his island for the night. Young Matt greeted me at the tail of the lock and I introduced myself.
“Hi,” I shouted, “are you Matt?”
“That’s me,” he shouted back.
“I’m Andrew. I called you on Saturday about camping on the island tonight. Is it still all right?” I asked anxiously.
“Yes. Go round the back and tie up and I’ll meet you.”
I sighed with relief. I didn’t particularly want to go any further. I had been paddling for seven hours already, not counting the break for lunch at Shepperton, and in the latter stages, I had been fighting the wind as well as the current. The next possible campsite, at Bray, was another nine miles, three locks and three more hours of paddling away. And I really wanted a proper campsite on my first night. While I was prepared to free camp along the way, a proper campsite with water, toilets and even a shower, would set me up nicely for the rest of the journey and break me in gently to the whole outdoor living experience.
I backed up and swung around the right side of the lock towards the sound of a roaring weir. Past small leisure boats moored against a long pontoon and through a narrow gap beside the bank where there was a steep walkway reaching up to the lock island. Unpacking the Karot and setting up camp was a new experience and one I was savouring even in my tired state. I tied front and aft to the mooring bollards and peeled open the rubber lids and unloaded the contents onto the pontoon. It took me two trips up the steel ramp to the area of rolling lawn above that Matt had indicated as the official lock island campsite. Unsurprisingly, no-one else was there. It was an area of lawn scarcely the size of a tennis court with a large yew tree up against the fence at the top. I decided to pitch my tent under the tree where the grass was still dry. I sprung open my pop-up tent and angled it so the door was on the slightly downhill end and my head would be at the uphill end.
I felt as excited as a child at Christmas. The tent worked fabulously and instantly created a dry haven. I unfurled the plastic Lilo with the pillow end at the top. Then I settled down inside the doorway to blow it up, hoping I had enough energy left. After a few minutes, it lay there in all its soft squeaky splendour. Swivelling, I addressed the contents of the dry bags, placing the beach towel on top of the Lilo as a blanket before unzipping the sleeping bag and laying it on top. There was only a narrow space between lilo and the sides of the tent for my possessions, so I was careful to position them neatly for easy access. I unpacked my pyjama T-shirt bearing the Diabetes UK logo, as well as dry boxer shorts in case I was called out in the night suddenly by some unimagined emergency. Torch and night-time bottle of water were wedged on the right beside the pillow, as was the iPod I had taken to keep me company and drown out the demon voices in my head at night. When all was ready, I decided on a shower. Matt had shown me the amenities in the large shed next door. A small kitchen, men’s and women’s toilets and a lockable shower room. All perfectly respectable and very reassuring.
I turned to my food bags. Now, I thought, what morsels of culinary excellence should I indulge in tonight? Hmmm, pork pie? Why not. Tin of baked beans with pickle? Definitely. Cheese? Banana? Yes, yes, yes. I ate with relish, sitting cross-legged at the door of the tent, listening to the roar of the weir and watching the night close in.
Blondes and Swans
The last view I had of my wife was of a slim blonde figure on the river bank at Teddington lock waving energetically like a piece of fluttering bunting. As the distance between us lengthened and she grew increasingly more diminutive, I felt a pang of sadness. A kind of aloneness at the thought that I would be spending the next five days on an adventure that she wasn’t participating in, from which I alone was deriving all the enjoyment.
She stood there waving, colourful and familiar in a turquoise fleece top and white slacks, looking lost and lovely as I pulled away from the river bank in my kayak. I was headed up the Thames for Lechlade in Gloucestershire. Against the current. Don’t ask me why. It had sounded good in the pub at the time and once I had made up my mind, I didn’t give it a second thought. It was a trip that had been a long time in the planning. I had covered practically every mile of the Thames at weekends in the summer in anticipation of this day. Except for the Teddington lock stretch.
Teddington lock. That wasn’t right for a start. As the biggest lock on the Thames, Teddington lock isn’t just one lock but three locks side by side. All the others, except Sunbury as I was soon to discover, get by perfectly well with only one lock chamber apiece. But not Teddington. It has a Barge lock, a Launch lock and a Skiff lock. This was one of the first and least expected items of information I was to learn on this voyage of discovery.
The Barge lock is against the London bank and is long enough to fit 12 average length narrow boats in a row. The Launch Lock, so called, I suppose, because it takes launches, is a standard-sized lock directly in front of the Lockkeeper’s cottage and is the one most commonly used.
The Skiff lock, if you can call it that (Martin, the assistant lock keeper, did), takes, well, skiffs, I suppose. And canoes, kayaks and sculls. It’s for when the other two locks are sitting idle and a paddler, rower or sculler comes paddling, rowing or sculling along wanting to be let through. Why waste eight million litres of Thames water in the Barge Lock on someone in a plastic kayak? Or 2.2 million litres in the Launch lock? Hence the Skiff lock is brought into play. It fills with a piffling fifty-six thousand litres of water in only three minutes and is so narrow I wouldn’t be able to use my paddles in it.
However I didn’t use any of the Teddington locks as I started my journey. That’s because I launched from a floating pontoon twenty metres upstream of all three locks. This blue metal platform was chained against the London bank at the end of the little lane we had driven down to get to the towpath. With my car pulled up beside it, I was able to lift my kayak off the roof rack and directly onto its deck. My kayak was bright orange, long and pointy. Like a carrot. So had named it ‘Karot’.
There were three wooden steps on the pontoon to make the transition from the tow path less of a drop. I lurched down these with the Karot bouncing on my knee at each drop. Even unladen, the four metre boat was unwieldy. I had inadvertently lifted it off the car pointing the wrong way, so had to turn it around to point upstream before I laid it down on the steel decking. This was unfortunate. My wrist twisted as the long craft swung around, causing a twinge of pain to shoot up my arm that made me curse. Good start, I thought. Once I had lain it lengthways along the pontoon in anticipation of the final drop into the water and flexed my sprained wrist, we began packing it.
‘We’ being my soon-to-be-abandoned wife, Carolyn, and our reliable friend, Senan, erstwhile owner of our local pub in my village in Buckinghamshire.
It had been a real problem finding someone who would commit to driving me to Teddington on the day I had planned. Before I had thought of Senan, I had asked everyone else in my address book with a Buckinghamshire or Berkshire postcode but they all displayed a polite reluctance or pleaded a prior engagement. With no other choice, I had reluctantly asked my London friend, Jerry. I say ‘reluctantly’ because it was such an imposition expecting him to come all the way out of London just to drive me all the way back in again, that I had felt really guilty calling on him. But I had no other choice and, of course, Jerry willingly agreed.
Then along came Senan who lived not much more than a quarter of a mile from my front doorstep. Senan hadn’t occurred to me because until recently he was gainfully employed in the IT industry. Then I found out he suddenly wasn’t. His contract had come to an end. As a result Senan was, as he so eloquently put it, between jobs at the moment, so had nothing better to do.
“I’ll do that! Of course I will!” he volunteered when he had heard about my dilemma. “If it means spending time in your car with your lovely lady wife, wild horses couldn’t keep me away. Now, when’s it to be, what’s to be done and how much does it pay?”
I heaved a sigh of relief. Thanks to Senan, backed up by a willing Jerry, the trip was back on again. Carolyn welcomed Senan’s offer with the same relief as myself. With eyesight that had long since succumbed to the affects of diabetes, Carolyn, of course, is unable to drive now. Which was why I was using this trip to raise money for this hardworking and thoroughly worthwhile charity.
Stowing my possessions for the next six days in the waterproof compartments didn’t take long. In the rear compartment I neatly stacked the three large waterproof bags containing my sleeping bag, my big beach towel and a roll of clothes so I could look reasonably civilised when I stopped at pubs and campsites along the way. I also stowed two smaller waterproof bags containing electrical bits and pieces such as a radio, torch, batteries and toilet bag. On top of all this (it was the larger of the two holds) I squeezed in the plastic swimming pool lilo I would be using as a bed. Once the items were in place, I crimped the waterproof rubber lid shut around the rim. On top of this hold, I tied down the pop-up tent that would give me shelter for the week.
In the forward hold I put two plastic shopping bags of food and my drink bottles containing water and a sugary ginger cordial to quench my thirst and give me much-needed energy along the way. I also sneaked in two plastic bottles filled with my favourite whisky in case I didn’t get to a pub every night.
‘Bloody hell Andrew, you going to the Antarctic or something?’ Senan quipped. ‘I bet Scot didn’t take that much.’
‘Yes, but look what happened to him,’ I replied as I tucked my maps and laminated itinerary under the stretchy ropes on the deck in front of me. I had cut four sheets of the Ordnance Survey Landranger series of maps into strips to act as my route guide and had sealed them in a waterproof plastic sleeve.
All that was left was to say my goodbyes and leave. It wasn’t as if I was going to get a fanfare or a Red Arrows fly-by, so I hugged Carolyn and shook Senan’s hand, thanking him yet again. I swung the heavy craft off the edge of the pontoon and dropped it into the water below. Sitting on the pontoon above, I lowered myself carefully into the seat with a sense of relief that I didn’t embarrass myself this early in the proceedings. Like an aircraft, where take-off and landing are the most tricky parts of a flight, so too is getting in and out of a kayak. Especially getting out after five or six hours of knee-numbing cramp spent paddling.
And so, after fastening my splash guard around me, I pushed off into the still stream and paddled my way across the river to take up my line along the right bank. On the rivers and waterways of the world, all vessels travel on the right. ‘Port a port’, they call the manoeuvre in which you pass an approaching vessel with your port side facing the opposing port side. Overtaking is different. Just like on a road in Europe or America where the overtaking vehicle uses the outside lane. Although I didn’t think that would apply to me. I didn’t anticipate doing much overtaking.
As I passed under my first bridge, albeit a footbridge, a short way up the lock cut, I twisted in my seat and waved back at the two receding before they were cut off from view. I could imagine Senan saying, “What’s that madman doing? Why can’t he rattle a tin outside Waitrose like everybody else?” Carolyn would be gazing after me, eyes moist with love and pride. “He’s my hubby. That’s what he does,” she would reply.
I paddled along the gently curving right bank, past moored pleasure craft and families of swans that glided over to greet me. Soon, Teddington’s three locks and my two well-wishers were out of sight. I looked ahead at the first of the big bridges coming up. By now, I had settled into a steady rhythm with each paddle dipping and pulling with a comfortable ease, powering me forward through the glassy water – leaving a satisfying ‘Vee’ behind.
The sun was in the sky, joy was in my heart and I had a whole day ahead of me. The sinking sense of separation I had experienced as I was pushing off was now being replaced with the uplifting feeling of freedom. I savoured the strangely familiar dank green odour of the water. It was an evocative smell of my childhood. Innocent times spent splashing in bush streams in New Zealand. Happy hours spent sitting on the harbour wall in my home town with a line and hook lowered expectantly into the muddy waters of the tidal estuary below. The splash of salty spray from the surf of an ocean beach. I loved the smell of water.
I played along the surface, close to the right bank and began taking in my surroundings. I passed a small island. I noticed several imaginatively named boat clubs: the Thames Sailing Club, the Thames Rowing Club and the Thames Canoe Club slid past. Soon, the commercial buildings of Kingston lined the banks while leisure craft sat complacent on the edge of the river. Turning, I could see small dinghies and tenders bobbing gently on my wake. I passed under Kingston railway bridge, just as a train rumbled overhead. What kind of a coincidence is that, I asked myself? Isn’t that supposed to be good luck? Like stepping on a butterfly or walking under a black cat or something?
However, by the time I passed under Kingston’s road bridge a short way ahead, with its hum of cars and red double-decker buses, three more trains had used the railway bridge behind me – so I figured the odds weren’t that astronomical after all.
Not wanting to miss anything important, I leant forward and consulted my itinerary on the deck in front of me. This ‘itinerary’ was a series of A4 sheets of paper I had researched, written, printed out and laminated. It was full of distances, times and interesting facts I had compiled throughout the summer. All it told me at this stage was that I was two miles into my trip and that the Kingston road bridge was first built in 1828 then widened in 1914 and again in 2001. I suppose that will do for a start.
I looked around for something to capture my interest. Names of boats suggested themselves. I slipped past ‘Fair Maiden’ moored against the bank. It was a faded off-white old pleasure craft with cracked hull and ruptured grey fenders hanging limply along its sides. The proud vessel of a not-so-proud owner who obviously spent more time talking about owning a boat on the Thames than caring for it. I saw many craft in far from ‘fair’ condition that made me wonder why. Why spend all that money on mooring fees, fuel, fitments and maintenance then leave it rotting on some obscure mooring on the Thames?
Some craft were new, others ancient but nevertheless more cared for. Names glided by like a litany to man’s aspirations. ‘Morning Glory’, ‘Proud Mistress’, ‘Perfumed Garden’, ‘Dream Lover’ – all seemingly testifying to something that couldn’t be mentioned at home. Others echoed the humour of their owners. These were often imaginative and inspiring. ‘Piston Broke’, ‘Cirrhosis of the River’, ‘Eyemin Charge’. Names that needed thinking about, then a brave commitment to actually have them painted on the sides of vessels that would have cost the owners tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of pounds to buy.
I was aiming for Old Windsor lock that night. According to my well-researched itinerary, it was twenty one miles and seven locks on from Teddington. I had told Martin, the assistant lock keeper at Teddington, what I was doing. He seemed politely quizzical about the upstream part of my venture. ‘Most people do it the other way,’ he said. It was to be a typical comment on my expedition from those I talked to along the way. I asked Martin if he would phone ahead to let the lock keeper at Molesey know I was coming. This, for purely selfish reasons. I thought that it would help me get through the lock without having to wait for a larger, more visible vessel to approach. And it would also give me a degree of status that I thought I needed as a lone paddler.
“UP the river?! Wow! Congratulations. You are brave. And for charity. Well done.” I imagined these bored custodians of a monotonous job would welcome the distraction as they opened the lock gates to let me through.
Nevertheless, for all my careful planning, there was always the nagging worry that some lock keepers would get complacent and not bother opening the gates for me, as if it wasn’t worth the effort for such a small craft. The problem was, if I was told to portage over the lock, there would be nothing I could realistically do. After all, isn’t that what these cleverly-planned portage ramps were for? Well, yes and no. Yes, if there was, in fact, a portage ramp. No, when there was only a steep flight of steps up from an impossibly high mooring bank. Then a long haul along a lock that could be anything from fifty to a hundred metres long. With an unloaded kayak, maybe, but I was painfully aware that I couldn’t realistically carry my fully-laden Karot any great distance, let alone haul it up a flight of concrete steps. So if I could gain the goodwill of as many lock keepers in advance, I would. And that meant talking to each as I passed through their care and convincing them I was a decent bloke on a mission of charity who deserved to have his way ahead smoothed for him.
The day continued intermittently sunny and cloudy as I plunged on down the great southerly sweep of the river, past boat houses and apartment buildings while sharp-winged sand martins wheeled and dived overhead, skimming the surface of the river for a gulp of water. It took me just over an hour to reach the base of the southerly loop by which time I was aware of the vast expanse of Hampton Court gardens cradled by its embracing curve on the right. Apartment buildings and boathouses had given way to a low concrete wall which lined the river from here on up to Hampton Court bridge (built in 1933) a mile ahead. No buildings peered above its horizon nor tree intruded over its banks. The well-laid lawns, ingenious topiary and magnificent maze lay beyond. The monotonous churn of my paddles all but a background melody. Carolyn and Senan would be home by now.
To think, I mused, over four hundred years ago, a corpulent king had sailed up these very waters on his royal barge to escape a plague in London. Farting and belching, his royal fatness had heaved his syphilitic body onto a mooring ramp and had his rotting flesh transported to the palace for another orgy of drunkeness and debauchery away from the prying eyes of his court. And his wife. Or at least that is what I liked to imagine. Ah, I thought, isn’t history wonderful. Mostly it was grubby, grunting and gory. Blood and power. Sex and politics. Sometimes little actions effecting big changes. Such as a single gunshot in Sarajevo in 1914. Other times it involved bigger undertakings such as the invasion of the Kent coast in 43AD. But there is hardly a spot on this land that doesn’t celebrate some event in history. This particular spot had more history than most. Architects and artists, barons and barmen, courtiers and courtesans, kings and queens all came to Hampton Court. It was permanently staffed like a small town. It rose in glory as a symbol of a king’s vanity and wealth to rival similar extravagances in Europe.
Opposite Henry the Eighth’s holiday hideaway, just before Hampton Court bridge, my notes told me that the River Mole enters the Thames on the left as a little stream. As I slid by, I observed it briefly between two concrete walls and a cluster of moored boats. This little stream ends its happy life here, as a mere culvert emerging into the muddy waters of the Thames. It is a sad end to a joyful journey through the leafy vales of Surry, where it has been twisting and turning through a sylvan landscape of picturesque villages and tidy towns. Winding past cottages and rural pubs, fields and woods. Until it arrives here, lost in the inevitable anonymity of the big city. Nothing surviving of its charm and character except for its name confused in the name of the suburb where it ends its heroic little life.
I arrived at my first lock at Molesey at a quarter past ten. I had left Teddington at five past nine. Just over an hour as I had expected.
As I approached the open lock gates, I automatically increased my stroke rate in case they were just starting to shut. Will I or won’t I be in time to get through? If they are shut, will the lock keeper or won’t he, open them? My orange kayak, red life vest and yellow paddles would be hard to miss. The lock keeper obviously saw me coming and obligingly opened the gates. It was a nice day and he probably didn’t mind standing at the end of the lock looking down the empty river wondering what he was being paid for.
“Thank you,” I shouted cheerily up at him as I glided, small and insignificant, into that dank chamber. He pushed the button that closed the gates behind me and I hovered mid-stream towards the back of the lock. This was the best place to be. A position far enough back where the on-coming rush of water through the front sluices had weakened and wouldn’t twist and turn me every which way and where I could control the boat midway between the two slimy walls.
“Did Martin down at Teddington call you?” I shouted as he passed me to walk to the top of the lock where the controls for the head sluices stood.
“Yes, he told me to expect you,” he replied. I was impressed.
“Great. Thanks. It’s just that I would have difficulty portaging. I’m loaded up with a week’s provisions and the boat’s a bit too heavy to carry.”
In fact, there was a proper portage at Molesey. A roller ramp that I would have been able to negotiate if obliged to. I didn’t want to, however, as I felt I had just got into the kayak and was nicely settled. The sluices ahead let in the waters in a great underwater surge that erupted onto the surface ahead of me. With no other vessel in the lock, it was easy enough to keep the front of the Karot pointed directly upstream and not be twisted sideways. I was raised silently upwards until I could see the clean cut lawn and hedges of the lock island. As the turbulence lessened, I paddled slowly forwards to where I drew level with a strange topiary on the left bank. A small tree shaped in the form of a laughing face. Once the water levels had equalised, the lock keeper pressed the button that opened the upstream gates.
“Someone’s got a sense of humour,” I said, indicating the tree.
“That’d be the wife. She’s handy that way.”
“Quite a tourist attraction. Do you get funny remarks from boaters?” I replied as I took out my camera and took a quick photo.
“All the time. It’s the most photographed shrub this side of Hampton Court.”
“I hope you don’t charge for it.”
“I’ll let you off. How far are you going?” he asked.
“All the way,” I replied. “I’m heading for Lechlade then on up as far as I can to Cricklade. It’s a solo paddle for charity. Here, here’s my charity card.” I fumbled in my life vest and handed him one of the dozen or so little cards I had printed off with the address of my fundraising website. He leant down and accepted it.
“Have a look at it. It tells you all about me,” I urged, as if he would be interested.
“Thanks, I will.”
“Are you Steve, the lock keeper?” I asked, wanting to make it sound as if this was a professionally-planned event.
“No, I’m the assistant lock keeper. Steve’s back this afternoon,” he replied.
“Oh, OK. You couldn’t phone ahead to Sunbury for me could you and let the lock keeper there know I’m coming? It would help if he was expecting me.”
“Sure, no problem. Good luck. Have a nice day,” he offered as I shot out of the lock into the calmer waters beyond like a horse from the starting gate. The small pause in the lock had rejuvenated me and I felt a new energy having conquered this first obstacle so easily. I glided on up the loop of the river in a nor’ westerly direction with a slight breeze coming over the waters from my left, insistently pushing me sideways. I increased the power on my right paddle to compensate.
I spent the next hour passing big islands lined with large houseboats. Many of the houseboats were floating on permanent moorings. Others were anchored to the river bottom on piers; legs of concrete and steel that held them inches above the water. They were fully furnished and ready for occupancy, yet looked tired and empty. As if they were recovering from a summer season of parties and picnics.
I also passed small islands covered with small houses; pretty, chalet-style cottages fronted by tidy lawns. Like a replica Lilliput representing a rural idyll only just far enough from London to pretend it is, indeed, rural. Each house frontage of this dainty paradise was decorated with exotic plants in quixotic urns on little paved patios that reached to the water’s edge. They were planted up with Phormiums and Cordulines from my native New Zealand, now so popular in the northern hemisphere. All very neat and pretty.
As I approached the prow of one small island, whistling the chorus from March of the Toreadors (as I do), I saw ahead a pretty blonde lady watering her plants. She was enjoying the sunshine and fresh air in her little haven on the tightly-packed island. She saw me coming and straightened up and waved. I shouted hello, nice day for it, referring, of course, to her gardening.
“Isn’t it,” she agreed. She brushed a strand of hair from her face and smiled at me with what I liked to think was encouragement and admiration. “You look as if you are enjoying yourself.”
“What’s not to enjoy?” I smiled back. “The sun is in the sky, the ducks are on the water and all is well in the kayak.”
“You look well-equipped, where are you going?” she asked.
Ignoring the obvious innuendo, I replied: “Lechlade in Gloucestershire.”
“Ooh, I know Lechlade. I love Lechlade. It’s a lovely village. I’ve got an aunt in Lechlade.” She had a happy, open smile, lightly freckled cheeks and very pale eyes. With the sun glowing off her crisp white shirt and blue jeans, she looked like a yummy mummy in a washing powder commercial.
“Have you? What a coincidence, ” I replied. “It is lovely isn’t it. I’ve done quite a lot of paddling up there. I’ll say hello to her for you if you like.” I was holding my position on the water by now, not four metres off her riverside lawn and enjoying the conversation.
“That would surprise her. I’ll tell her to look out for you.”
“I should arrive on Friday afternoon. I’ll push on to Cricklade on Saturday and return,” I told her.
“Will you get there by Friday? How far is it?”
I checked my well-researched itinerary.
“Forty four locks and a hundred and twenty-seven miles,” I replied.
“That’s fantastic. Well good luck and maybe I’ll see you then.”
“Tell her my name is Andrew,” I shouted back as I resumed paddling with what I thought was an impressive, muscle-rippling power stroke. I surged ahead and over to the right bank to take the channel at the back of Platt’s Eyot. I turned in my seat and saw her standing there staring after me, empty watering can hanging by her side. Who is she, I wondered? What is she doing in a little chalet on an island on the Thames? It was Monday, shouldn’t she be at work?
One of the advantages of this little craft was that I could explore backwaters and channels behind islands that were, perhaps, only navigable to manpowered craft. I passed the blue ‘Channel’ sign pointing to the left of Platt’s Eyot as I ventured into the alternative channel on the right. At the back of the eyot and out of site of the pleasure folk were rough working yards and marinas with none of the genteel refinement of the previous residential Thames. Derelict iron structures and dilapidated buildings wasted valuable residential real estate on the eyot itself. I glided past in cool shade to emerge in the main channel a couple of hundred metres upstream.
I was being spoilt. Sunbury lock had a roller portage too, but I didn’t use it. With two locks side by side, it was also a double lock. I pulled up in front of the one closest to the left bank. Apparently the lock keeper here had been informed by the assistant lock keeper at Molesey that an idiot in an orange kayak was on his way upstream.
“Yes, he called me,” he shouted. “Said you’re going all the way up. Most people do it the other way!”
“I know,” I said, thinking I’m going to have to get used to this. “But where’s the fun in that?” I was feeling fit and notorious. I had put on a final spurt of speed as I neared the lock when I saw a pleasure boat entering a hundred metres ahead and I feared the lock keeper would shut the gate before I arrived. However, it had stayed open until I had passed through and I was grateful. I stretched my arms and flexed my sprained wrist as I sat in that cool chamber chatting to the people on the pleasure boat. It was an anonymous blue and white gin palace for all the family. A large jolly woman was holding the aft tether while her husband, a mature man of military bearing in a tight grey pullover with epaulettes, held the forward rope. I held on to a dangling tender. Most of my conversations started with: ‘Nice day for it,’ and this one was no different. It sounded the right pitch of casualness and inquisitiveness. You can chat back or ignore it as a mere pleasantry. The jolly woman agreed but added that the weather was on the turn.
"I hope it holds," she observed. "It’s been nice so far."
“Where have you come from,” I enquired.
“Just down there, Teddington,” she replied.
“Me too,” I continued. “Going far today?”
“Oh, we’re going up to Shepperton,” she replied. “Where are you going?”
Exchanges like this were fairly typical of my journey in the early days when I was actually talking to people. For me, they served the purpose of letting me know I wasn’t going ‘bush’ and that I still maintained some shred of civility. I imagined myself in days to come, bearded, mosquito-bitten, thin and reedy with arms like Popeye and communicating in salivating grunts when confronted with a fellow human.
But perhaps not. I had packed a razor after all.
With a promise from the lock keeper to phone ahead to Shepperton lock, I surged out of the upstream gate with a cheery goodbye to the lock keeper and to the jolly woman and her military husband. The blue and white gin palace for all the family overtook me further along the long sheltered lock cut and I rolled precariously on its trailing wake. Upstream wakes are much more uncomfortable that those of boats coming downstream. Downstream wakes pass quickly and I am only left with the smaller ripples that bounce off the river bank and slide under my hull unnoticed. Because I am travelling in the same direction, upstream wakes take longer to pass and I surf their small crests and roll sideways for some time after the boat has motored on ahead.
The four mile stretch to Shepperton Lock started with a steep southwest run followed by a series of wiggles surrounded by a confusion of backwaters, side streams and reservoirs. At least it looked confusing on the map and I just hoped I kept on the right channel. By my reckoning, it was another hour’s paddle, by which time I would be ready for something to eat.
I passed bungalows and boathouses, swans and sailing clubs. Marinas opened out into the channel from left and right and the day remained fair. I continued paddling southwest for another mile until I came to the ugliest bridge I had ever seen. It was at Walton and it was a rusting, riveted metal monstrosity of a bridge that looked as though it should have fallen down years ago. I ducked under it, holding my breath until I was safely out the other side, wondering who bore the shame for its construction and continued presence.
I glided up the long, dank corridor of the Desborough Cut. This was a manmade shortcut to Shepperton lock that avoided the twisting wiggly bits I had observed on my map. At the end, the blue ‘Shepperton Lock’ sign hoved into view and I only had to pause by the mooring bank for a few minutes while a boat entered from upstream. Then with a satisfying whoosh, I saw the water churn out of the downstream sluices. Two boats came through and motored gently past to their next destination with a wave and a nod.
Shepperton also surprised me with my first female lock keeper. Or assistant lock keeper, as my well-researched itinerary noted that the actual lock keeper was another Steve. So whether this was Steve’s wife or a summer temp, I don’t know, but she was cheery enough and had also been forewarned by Sunbury Lock of my coming. I asked her if there was anywhere on the lock island I could pull up and have lunch and she suggested the other side of the lock where there was a pub.
“Just through the gates on your right, love, you can’t miss it,” she said. Then added, “so you’re going upstream. Most people go the other way.” As she stood there, finger on the button powering the gates open, she looked as though she wanted to add: “Are you sure you know what you are doing?”
I left her my charity website card and thanked her as I pushed through the gates and entered a large basin with a thundering weir to my left. Expensive houses lined the river bank and weir island. On the right was a stretch of grass and, as I rounded a slight bend, there was the Thames Court pub with its tables and chairs and lunchtime businessmen sipping diet cokes and virgin Marys in the chill sun. I glided to a halt beside the low wall in front of the pub, praying that my first exit from the Karot would be uneventful. It was, luckily, and I afforded the idle audience no spectacle except that I sat on a small nettle growing between the cracks of the paving which gave me a warming glow on my upper leg.
It had been a morning of steady paddling. Of observation, conversation and elation. I passed inquisitive swans which sailed gently towards me, trailing grey fluffy cygnets, hoping for a morsel. Ubiquitous mallards took off and landed in a flurry under blue and white skies reflecting off a dank green Thames. Cormorants avoided me, while coots hooted in alarm before fluttering and stuttering across the water leaving a trail of splashes like a small outboard motor. Wood pigeons regularly flew across my path and a grey wagtail had erupted from the bank near the weir at Sunbury lock and fluttered in undulating flight to find shelter further up.
For lunch on this first day, I had the luxury of a store-bought sandwich, still fresh in its plastic container. Barely had I sat on the public seat overlooking the river and taken the first bite, than a couple ambled up and began chatting to me. They had seen me get out of my kayak and thought I looked harmless enough to approach. That was encouraging. I thought I looked quite weird in my bright yellow and red water gear. I shuffled along and offered them a seat. He sat with his little white dog on a lead while she stood and fiddled with her camera. It was a large expensive affair, heavy and black, with little pouches on the shoulder strap containing various items of photographic wizardry. The normal conversation about the weather revealed that it wasn’t, in fact, sunny enough for them as they were shooting the weir. By this, they didn’t mean, shooting the weir in a canoe as in ‘shooting the rapids’, but photographing it. She was a professional photographer and was getting the shots for her client, the construction company that built the weir system. Her name was Ros and his, Vince. The small white dog, I was proudly informed, was Muppet. I felt an interesting conversation coming on, so welcomed the company.
“No, I’m not a photographer, just her duty slave,” Vince elaborated good-naturedly. “I arrange everything and make sure she gets everywhere on time.”“Shame you can’t arrange better weather,” she observed. “We’ve been here all morning trying to get some sunny shots, but it’s not looking too good. We might have to give up soon, can’t wait much longer.”
I agreed about the dodgy weather. “The sun comes out occasionally though,” I offered hopefully, “but I suppose you have to be on the spot waiting for the exact moment.” I told her I had worked with many photographers in my career, which elicited the question of what I did. I explained that I was in advertising and marketing, self-employed, and had art-directed a few photographic shoots in my time. Which led on to what I was doing on the river, why upstream, surely most people go downstream etc etc.
We sat there observing the weir island, along with the weir itself and the footbridges that crossed various channels at oblique angles.
“My client has rebuilt the weir system and walkways over the last few years,” Ros informed me. “The project included reinforcing the banks all around the island and along the far side for the residents. They didn’t have to pay. It was part of the agreement with the Environment Agency.”
I considered the engineering company’s unlikely altruism as I looked at the new reinforced banks in front of me, thinking these will last a good few decades. But nothing is for free. There’s always something in it for someone, usually the big boys at the top.
Dragging little Muppet along on the retractable lead, Ros and Vince left me to take advantage of a spell of sunshine for some more photography. I put my rubbish in a nearby bin and slipped down into the Karot without mishap. It was twenty five past one. Feeling fed and fit, I pushed off for the second leg of the day’s journey. Chertsey lock lay two miles ahead. Based on my morning’s performance, that would take thirty to forty minutes.
I was at the bottom of the Thames. This loop at Shepperton was the lowest point, the most southerly part, of the entire length of the river. It would be uphill for the next ninety miles to King’s lock near Eynsham in Oxfordshire, where I would celebrate being at the most northerly reach of the river. Along the way, there were a few southward loops and turns that would get the sun off my back and into my eyes. However, I had to get today’s twenty one mile stretch under my belt first. I was looking forward to my first night’s camp. Between me and Old Windsor Lock lay Chertsey, Penton Hook and Bell Weir locks.
I paddled around several more loops and curves to get to Chertsey. I was looking forward to my first motorway beyond that. Passing under the M3 would be followed by the M25 that day, then the M4 tomorrow. These were important landmarks in a trip which would otherwise be defined by locks. As it transpired, going under a motorway was not an earth-shattering experience.
The wind started to pick up in irritating gusts after Shepperton. At first it was on my back, pushing me northwest, but then in my face as I turned down the south west stretch of the river with Chertsey Meads on my left and parkland on the right.
On up to Chertsey Lock, with a gusting breeze in my face, where I asked the lock keeper, as always, if he would mind phoning ahead to Penton Hook. “Sure,” he replied casually, and I popped out the top of his lock. It was five past two. My timing was spot on. A few hundred metres ahead was the awesome M3 bridge, my biggest bridge yet. To celebrate the event, I went to great pains to take a self-timer photograph of myself underneath it. This involved pulling up against the concrete wall under the giant steel arches, taking my camera out of its waterproof sleeve, rummaging around under my splash guard for the small tripod and placing all strategically at head height on the bank above. The trick then was to press the aperture button and push myself away from the bank to look as if I was casually paddling past at exactly the same time the thirty second delay clicked the camera. It worked. At least to the extent that I was the right distance away and somewhere in front of it grinning like an idiot as the camera flashed. When I checked the photo, it was all right. I was coming into shot on the left and the arches curved above me like the vaulted roof of a gigantic wine cellar. That would do, I thought, wondering if I would do it all over again for the next two motorways. To be honest, it wasn’t that impressive. Nothing from the river really is, except the river itself. I had no sense that thousands of tons of metal thundered above me. I had no idea what they could see on their horizon from their high up position. All I knew was that, according to the notes on my well-researched itinerary, Laleham Golf Club was on my left and Laleham Abbey off to the right as I slid in a nor’ westerly direction to the hook at Penton that gave the area its name. All I could see was the river bank gliding past. A duck’s-eye view. Or a swan’s-eye, perhaps. But no more. There could have been naked girls dancing around maypoles in those fields but I couldn’t see past the towpaths and grassy banks.
Unfortunately, I couldn’t go around the eponymous hook at Penton because a cut had sliced through the neck to set it adrift as a kind of man-made ox-bow with an impassable weir throttling one throat. So I sliced up the main channel and into the first lock where the lock keeper hadn’t heard of me.
“Didn’t you know I was coming?” I enquired.
“No,” he replied.
“Oh,” I was disappointed. “Didn’t the guy at Chertsey call you to let you know?”
“No.” He was obviously a man of few words. Perhaps the lock keeper at Chertsey was afraid of him.
“Oh, OK. It’s just that I’ve been asking each lock keeper to phone ahead to the next lock to let them know I was coming. I thought it would help you guys if you knew in advance that I couldn’t portage with my kayak loaded up like this,” I explained disingenuously.
“It doesn’t matter. Wouldn’t make any difference. We’d still open up for you.”
“Oh, I thought you might expect a kayak to portage if there was no other boat coming through.”
“Not if you didn’t want to. It’s our job.”
“That’s a relief,” I replied, and relaxed a bit. “I’m on a charity paddle up the Thames to Lechlade,” I added by way of explanation, and to forestall the inevitable ‘Most people do it the other way’.
“No problem,” he said as the gates opened and I was out the other side. It was three o’clock and I began fighting a gusting head wind which is a nightmare for kayakers. When it’s strong enough, the wind catches the paddle and wiggles it awkwardly before it comes down for a misplaced stroke. Also, there is a greater resistance than I would have thought on a body in a streamlined craft. So it became a bit of a slog, that stretch on up through Staines. I was bent forward for much of it trying to eke a few metres out of each pull of the paddle, noticing how slowly the river bank moved backwards beside me. Old people walk with shopping trolleys faster than this, I thought.
I passed between high rise council blocks; 1960’s monstrosities finished in various shades of white and terracotta as if splashing a little Mediterranean joy into the grey landscape of London suburbia. A teenage couple sat on the right bank, engrossed in some private conflict. He was pleading his case and her body language was saying no. When I glided past, she looked at me with bored eyes and a sigh. He was a tormented, spotty youth begging for forgiveness of some drunken misdemeanour and was too focused on his mission to notice me on mine.
I finally reached the railway bridge at Staines followed by an arched stone road bridge built, it said, in 1832. There was a small respite from the gusting wind between that town’s buildings.
The only reason I knew it was Staines, was because I had a map. There are no signs on the river informing me where I was aside from the obligatory ones the Environment Agency put up directing you down the correct channel and towards a lock. And sometimes even these are absent. I have come across a fork in the river, or an alternative channel, that may or may not simply go around the back of an island and rejoin the main stream further up. But I’m not to know from my swan’s-eye position, so I usually opt for the widest channel and hope for the best. So far, I haven’t had the misfortune of paddling for hours up a backwater before confronting a weir and having to go all the way back downstream again to join the correct channel. I wasn’t looking forward to that day.
Passing under the M25 was a watershed for me. Up until now, I had been in virgin territory, but from here on I was more or less on my home patch. Runnymede, Windsor, Bray, Maidenhead, Marlow, Henley, Wargrave, Sonning and even Reading were all local to me. I had friends, family and clients in these towns and I had spent many a day trip in the Karot along these stretches of water throughout the summer.
I decided not to take a photo of me grinning under the M25 overbridge. It looked much the same as the M3 overbridge with its featureless steel arches. It was also a bit like my local Marlow bypass, but on a bigger scale, so it didn’t offer me anything special in the way of an architectural experience. However, a little way ahead of the M25 bridge, Bell Weir Lock certainly surprised me. It was four o’clock as I slid between its hulking gates. I was the sole occupant as the gates swung shut behind me.
“You might want to hold on,” the lock keeper shouted down at me. “Grab the chains.”
“I’ll be OK,” I replied, wondering why he thought I looked like a novice. “I can control it better in the middle.” I positioned myself mid-stream midway along its length, as always waited for the gurgling rush from the underwater sluices ahead. It was a particularly large lock. In fact, the walls were nearly three metres high and the cavernous chamber was well over seventy metres long. Compared to little Shepperton lock, at only about fifty metres long, that was impressive.
“Suit yourself,” the lock keeper said as he opened the sluices. As expected, the water welled to the surface behind the head gates and the disturbance moved towards me. Then something I didn’t expect. I casually dipped my paddles gently in the water each side of me to keep steady. Then, unexpectedly, a second rush of water exploded directly under me. It was like riding a geyser. I was twisted and turned in all directions and had to work my paddles furiously to prevent myself from losing control. The turbulence continued for a long, frantic minute. Finally, the foaming eruption subsided as the levels equalised. I moved down the lock to confront the lock keeper.
“Wow! What was that?” I asked as I drew level with him. “What was going on in the middle there? I haven’t seen that before.”“I warned you,” he smiled. “They’re duck sluices. Channels that run behind the walls on both sides and open halfway along the lock beneath the surface.”
“Blimey! That was fun,” I said. “What are they for?”
“Oh, just to operate the lock faster. We’re quite a big lock here and it speeds up the filling.”
“Are there any more like that?” I asked.
“Romney’s got them. It’s the only other one that does.”
I noted in my journal that evening that I was in my ‘first bit of country’. Although somewhat manicured, green fields and parkland opened out before me after Bell Weir lock. However, the sky had darkened and the low cloud was taking on an ominous hue.
I was in familiar territory at Runneymede. Historically, this was the birthplace of the nearest thing the British have for a constitution. It was here that King John signed a piece of paper imaginatively call ‘the Big Charter’ that acceded rights and privileges to that deserving and downtrodden class, the barons.
I could smell the damp in the air as I crawled that last three miles from Bell Weir lock to Old Windsor. There was a stiff wind and it became a bit of a struggle as I continued on upstream between trees and fields. I scarcely noticed the world around me. A road hugged the river on the left and up ahead was my first campsite and respite from what was becoming a long day. Staying close to the right bank, I pushed past Magna Carta Island and on up beside lush trees until the green gave way to a towpath lined with houses. That’s when it started raining. Thin, drifting drizzle of no great volume to concern me, barely a mist, but nevertheless uncomfortable.
It was exactly five o’clock when I pulled up at Old Windsor Lock. I had phoned the assistant lock keeper a few days earlier to book my place on his island for the night. Young Matt greeted me at the tail of the lock and I introduced myself.
“Hi,” I shouted, “are you Matt?”
“That’s me,” he shouted back.
“I’m Andrew. I called you on Saturday about camping on the island tonight. Is it still all right?” I asked anxiously.
“Yes. Go round the back and tie up and I’ll meet you.”
I sighed with relief. I didn’t particularly want to go any further. I had been paddling for seven hours already, not counting the break for lunch at Shepperton, and in the latter stages, I had been fighting the wind as well as the current. The next possible campsite, at Bray, was another nine miles, three locks and three more hours of paddling away. And I really wanted a proper campsite on my first night. While I was prepared to free camp along the way, a proper campsite with water, toilets and even a shower, would set me up nicely for the rest of the journey and break me in gently to the whole outdoor living experience.
I backed up and swung around the right side of the lock towards the sound of a roaring weir. Past small leisure boats moored against a long pontoon and through a narrow gap beside the bank where there was a steep walkway reaching up to the lock island. Unpacking the Karot and setting up camp was a new experience and one I was savouring even in my tired state. I tied front and aft to the mooring bollards and peeled open the rubber lids and unloaded the contents onto the pontoon. It took me two trips up the steel ramp to the area of rolling lawn above that Matt had indicated as the official lock island campsite. Unsurprisingly, no-one else was there. It was an area of lawn scarcely the size of a tennis court with a large yew tree up against the fence at the top. I decided to pitch my tent under the tree where the grass was still dry. I sprung open my pop-up tent and angled it so the door was on the slightly downhill end and my head would be at the uphill end.
I felt as excited as a child at Christmas. The tent worked fabulously and instantly created a dry haven. I unfurled the plastic Lilo with the pillow end at the top. Then I settled down inside the doorway to blow it up, hoping I had enough energy left. After a few minutes, it lay there in all its soft squeaky splendour. Swivelling, I addressed the contents of the dry bags, placing the beach towel on top of the Lilo as a blanket before unzipping the sleeping bag and laying it on top. There was only a narrow space between lilo and the sides of the tent for my possessions, so I was careful to position them neatly for easy access. I unpacked my pyjama T-shirt bearing the Diabetes UK logo, as well as dry boxer shorts in case I was called out in the night suddenly by some unimagined emergency. Torch and night-time bottle of water were wedged on the right beside the pillow, as was the iPod I had taken to keep me company and drown out the demon voices in my head at night. When all was ready, I decided on a shower. Matt had shown me the amenities in the large shed next door. A small kitchen, men’s and women’s toilets and a lockable shower room. All perfectly respectable and very reassuring.
I turned to my food bags. Now, I thought, what morsels of culinary excellence should I indulge in tonight? Hmmm, pork pie? Why not. Tin of baked beans with pickle? Definitely. Cheese? Banana? Yes, yes, yes. I ate with relish, sitting cross-legged at the door of the tent, listening to the roar of the weir and watching the night close in.
The first night
I felt sorry for the Queen. Here I am only a mile from Windsor Castle and the jets taking off from Heathrow Airport across the river in front of me practically tipped the turrets of her home as they flew overhead. Her lead-light windows must have rattled at each fly-past.
I sat in the mouth of my tent that first damp evening watching the jets and listening to the sharp cries of the parakeets flying from tree to tree. I sipped my favourite whisky (ah, my beloved Laphroaig) and puffed on my cigar. It was the perfect way to spend an evening. The day’s work done, a smug sense of satisfaction at having kept to my schedule, and all the necessities at hand. The low hum of the weir below the lock island provided a soothing accompaniment.
I took another sip of my whisky as another jet climbed into the clouds overhead. They continued rising above the willows across the stream every sixty seconds. No sooner had one disappeared over Windsor Castle behind me, than another one rose steeply in front. Black silhouettes that rose with a roar into the darkening sky.
The lock keeper had long since gone off duty and it was only me and my little pop-up tent on the lawn behind the lock house. I thought about the sounds of my day, the muted ‘shoosh, shoosh’ of the paddles, hour after hour. The sharp cry of the coots as they flurried out of my way, the flapping, quacking ducks and the serenely silent swans. Of all the wildfowl, of all the ducks, coots, swans, geese and grebes I had encountered on the river, all but the grebes flew off in alarm. The grebe didn’t fly, but dived for safety. Everything else took to the air to escape my relentless upstream journey.
Another jet-load of tourists escaping the English weather took to the air over the drooping willows. I took another sip of my lovely whisky and watched as it grew in size, climbing steeper and steeper, undercarriage dangling redundantly, until it was engulfed by the clouds above Windsor Castle. Rending the dusky sky with a primeval groan, they punctured the low cloud layer with their headlights blazing and disappeared from view leaving a trail of disquiet until the next one climbed out of its distant lair.
I continued watching and observing, feeling a warm tranquillity settle over me. I lit another cigar and refreshed my plastic tumbler and began noticing distinct and individual characteristics in these metal monsters. The smaller ones, I observed (obviously the young of the pack) were light and nimble and gained altitude quickly and steeply with the jaunty confidence of the young, trailing their adolescent whine below the cloud layer. The big ones, the alpha males and females, I noticed astutely as I savoured my whisky wisely, were low and lumbering, heaving their considerable bulk reluctantly into the night sky with a guttural groan that rose to a great roar of defiance until they, too, were swallowed by the cloud layer.
Then there was their undercarriages. Do you know how quickly they pull these dangling things up? Very quickly is the answer to that. Time after time, every sixty seconds, every time one rises on a roar, that’s the first thing I noticed, after a while. Then, as I finished what I decided was definitely my last shot of whisky, definitely, I observed, to my amazement, that they also turn off their headlights as soon as they hit the cloud layer. How incredible is that!? They really do turn off their headlights when they hit the cloud layer, these primitive beasts of burden with their tourists going to far-flung places and warmer climes that are far flung. They always turn their headlights off when they get to the clouds. Why is that? Maybe it’s out of consideration for the Queen. Maybe she protested about the bright lights shining in her windows at night. I mean, she might as well live on a motorway, if that’s going to happen. But then there’s the noise. No, she can’t change that, unless they move the airport, and I hear they’re not going to do that. I decided that it was her fault anyway. I mean to say, what silly bugger builds a royal castle under the flight path of the world’s busiest airport? Serves her right. I think it’s time for bed. I fell backwards onto my lovely Lilo which is exactly where I wanted to land. It was eight o’clock.
I slept fitfully. Jets roared overhead until eleven o’clock to be replaced by the gentle murmur of the weir and the squelch of my plastic Lilo as I turned in my sleep. At one point the wind picked up and I was conscious of the familiar sound of rain. Comfortable and dry in my pop-up tent, I optimistically told myself that it would pass by morning.
© Andrew Dunning 2008
