Day Four
Meetings and monsters
The geese had gone the next morning but the rain hadn’t. It continued to drizzle as I sat in the mouth of my tent, eating my banana and muesli bar breakfast and planning the day. I hadn’t kept to my schedule for yesterday which dictated that I should be at Benson lock eleven miles upstream by now. Looking at my well-researched itinerary, I could calculate that another twenty miles would take me to Clifton lock. That was the long stretch of the Thames through Goring, Wallingford, Benson and past the Roman town of Dorchester. Then a big loop southeast to the campsite that I knew was beside the bridge at Clifton Hampden. It looked daunting. It looked uphill. But that’s only because it was running up my map, heading northward. Furthermore, the wind was in the northeast. Great. Uphill, headwind, double trouble.
It was seven o’clock and I needed the toilet. Up until now I had been reasonably relaxed about the whole toilet thing. Up until now I had been in campsites, so knew there wasn’t going to be a problem with access and availability. But here, alone on the bank of the river, things were going to be a bit more makeshift. But, not wanting to upset my regular morning routine, I had come prepared. I had a Swiss Army knife and a roll of toilet paper. Those of a sensitive nature should block their ears.
With toilet roll and Swiss Army knife in hand, I climbed the bank at the back of my tent to where Karot was still lying in the wet grass. Behind that was a rough pasture with a row of trees beyond. Looking up and down the pathway in each direction to make sure no-one was out for an early morning stroll, I quickly searched for a good spot, exposed though it was. As it turned out, the pasture was perfect, made up of large clumps of wild grass. Remembering an old trick I learnt in the army, I opened the long blade of the knife and plunged it into the ground at the side of a suitable tuft of grass. Then, with a careful sawing action, I moved the knife around the clump until it had been entirely circumnavigated. All that remained was to grab the long grass in a bunch and lift it out of the ground. What was left was a bowl-shaped indentation that would suit me perfectly. When I had finished, I simply placed the tuft of grass back into place. All very environmentally friendly.
I washed my hands in the river, finishing off with a sprinkling of clean water from my flask, before cleaning my teeth and packing up.
As I settled carefully into the cockpit and gently pushed off the low bank, the river looked calm and still under the light drizzle. My waterproof plastic watch told me it was seven thirty as I swung the Karot’s nose upstream. Although the river looked flat, the current was deceptively strong. I rounded a gentle right bend and paddled up a long straight stretch for about a mile, past the wildlife park on my left where I observed the places I could have camped the night before if I had the energy and inclination to push further on after Whitchurch lock. I felt I had the better deal where I was as there was no shelter on the grassy left bank where the lock keeper had suggested I might camp. A few pleasure craft were pressed against the wet grass.
At the end of the long stretch, fields on either side and a left bend ahead, another paddler emerged through the drizzle. He was a mirror image of myself, togged up against the weather and in a bright orange kayak. A sense of relief flooded through me. Another like me. A friend on the water who understood what I was going through.
He drew closer. I slowed my paddling, although not stopping entirely lest I was pushed backwards by the stream. As he drew level, I could see he was wearing a light waterproof parka and his boat was an ‘expedition’ kayak like mine, equipped with fore and aft waterproof holds and deck strapping holding down various items of equipment.
I opened the conversation with the usual, “Hallo there! Where are you headed?”
“Greenwich. And you?” he replied. He was younger and looked fitter than me. Slim and athletic with a small black goatee beard. He looked like a proper kayaker. He probably wore sandals as a fashion item and did this every year. I wondered what I looked like to him. A disoriented old duffer going the wrong way up an increasingly turbulent river? A middle-aged fool? Lost and alone?
“I’m heading for Lechlade, then on up to Cricklade as far as I can go.”
“Where did you leave from?”
“Teddington,” I replied. “On Monday.”
“Monday? You’ve done well. How’s it been so far?”
“Not quite the weather I wanted. I’m not making the distances I expected. The current seems to be getting up a bit. How long has it taken you to get here?”
“I left on Tuesday,” he said. That was two days ago.
“You’re not doing too bad yourself. But then you’ve got a little help,” I replied.
“Yeah, it does make it easier. You should try it.”
“Hah ha! Maybe next year,” I laughed. “Good luck.”
“You too.” And he stopped back-paddling and let the current carry him swiftly away downstream.
I checked my well-researched itinerary and quickly did the calculations. He had drifted comfortably downstream averaging something like thirty two miles a day while I had been finding it hard to cover only twenty. And I bet he was enjoying a paltry four hour paddling day too. That meant a nice lie-in in the morning and an early stop at a comfortable campsite for an afternoon at a local pub. I was jealous.
As he receded into the distance, he looked more and more isolated and alone on the vast expanse of the river. Did I look so vulnerable I wondered? I didn’t feel it. With all the wildlife, lock keepers, boaters and blondes, I had not spent one minute of my journey so far thinking I was alone. Geese honked at me. Coots yelped in alarm and ducks softly scolded. Besides, I had the voices in my head.
Baby great crested grebes were the most vocal. I had come across several family groups comprising a female (a great crested grebe with no crest) and her young. These were precocious little balls of black and white stripy fluff that darted around their mother and showed no signs of caution. When I approached too close, the mother would dive, and the young would be left on the surface looking bereft and bemused, wondering where their mother had gone. Eventually they would set up a strident alarm cry that cut through the silence with surprising vigour. ‘Chiddley, chiddley, chiddley, cheep, cheep, chiddley, chiddley cheep!’ until their mother resurfaced a short distance away. Seeing that the orange menace was still bearing down on her family, she would submerge again as if demonstrating their escape strategy.
I picked up my stroke and pulled myself further upstream to the second of three magnificent Brunel bridges I was to encounter on my journey. Smaller than the Brunel bridge at Maidenhead I had passed under two days previously, Gatehampton railway bridge nevertheless strode the Thames in four red brick arches with the same grandeur and style. A First Great Western train thundered over it as I approached then whooshed on through the fields and villages beyond.
At this point I realised I would be paddling into the unknown because at this point, the river ran off the western edge of my Ordnance Survey Landranger map No.175 a couple of times and looped back on again further north. When I had been planning my journey, I had thought it a waste of £7 to buy the adjoining map for the sake of a couple of aberrant meanders. The Thames continued northwards on my map to connect with Ordnance Survey map 164 above. Which I possessed. And which covered the next forty-five miles of the Thames from Benson to Radcott lock in the Cotswolds. So, I had to take the risk that I would not fall off the end of the world in the next few miles.
As if presaging some end-of-world disaster, the sky darkened further as a great blanket of grey nimbostratus clouds crept over the landscape and the wind picked up. The rain started falling again as I disappeared into the white obscurity of the map margins.
“There be monsters in them thar waters oi reckon,” a voice in my head warned me. “Go there at your own peril young master,” it intoned. “Those who venture beyond oft never return. Heed my advice, me hearty!”
Looking out for plesiosaurs and kraken, I moved tentatively forward through the mist of rain. Ravaged old trees draped desolate limbs into murky water as I struggled past. I was now instinctively adopting the tactic of taking the line of least resistance to the current, irrespective of which side of the river it meant I had to use. The ‘port to port’ rule was long since abandoned. If I confronted another craft, so be it. I would salute it and hug the illegal bank guiltily until it had drifted by.
Around that first right hand sweep into the unknown, I met no-one. I was clinging to the left bank as I approached the bend, then cut across midstream fighting the stronger current there, to embrace the slower water on the inside bank of the curve where I made slow but steady progress under the dripping branches. At the next leftward bend I would drive forward straight ahead and rejoin the left bank, expecting to see at any moment the river disappear over the edge of the earth in a giant cataract.
It didn’t, and I soon reached the safety of Ordnance Survey map 175 again, briefly, at Goring. I only had a few hundred metres of respite through that town however, but first I had to negotiate Goring Lock, where the lock keeper was annoyingly absent. It was a quarter to nine, so I could either wait in the rain for him to come on duty at nine or find a portage place and drag the Karot over. I pulled up against the temporary mooring pier at the right of the lock and lifted myself from the boat. A flight of steep concrete steps led up to the bank above. I could see that I was on a promontory protruding from the riverbank that created a small inlet over the other side. The lock island itself was on the left. There was no sign of life, so I decided to tackle the portage, rather than open the lock myself, figuring it would be quicker. If I could get Karot up the concrete steps, I could then drag it across the grass and drop it in the water at a suitable spot I had discovered on the other side.
Which is exactly what I did. Except the dragging up the steps didn’t work out very successfully. Concrete is hard. Karot, soft. I noticed that a thin strip of plastic lay curled on the top step as I flopped the boat down on the grass at the top. Angry, I struggled to lift the boat and limped unsteadily to the drop point ahead. Once I had positioned it on the grass, I gently shoved it nose first into the water a metre below. That wasn’t very successful either. Such was the weight of the craft that it dived nose first into the river and kept on plunging down until water was pouring into the cockpit. By the time it had stopped bobbing about on the surface, the inside was awash with water. Great, I thought, I’ll have to bale it out again. The trouble was, I couldn’t reach from the bank, so I took off my oil skin hat and dropped it onto the seat. Then, I lowered myself carefully down into the boat, gripping a root protruding from the bank in case I lost my balance standing on the seat. I managed to drop down into the cockpit successfully and squelched as I sat on my hat on the water-sodden seat. I spent the next few minutes emptying out as much water as I could with my plastic cup before I set off up stream in the rain, cursing silently and struggling to keep the bow pointed in the right direction against the wind.
If I only had someone to help carry the boat, none of this would have happened. It was about now that I started thinking about my brother. Where was he? Sunning himself on some coastal island out of Auckland Harbour, no doubt. Happily eating his day’s catch of shellfish on a white sandy beach under a bright blue sky enjoying the company of friends.
The rain had settled down to a relentless sheet of drizzle that steamed my glasses and soaked through my thin nylon parka. Fortunately I wasn’t cold - all that exercise was stoking my engine and warming my body. If my brother was here, as he had promised, we would be laughing at this together. Oh how we would laugh! Instead, I was laughing alone, on a dismal day in a damp kayak after four days of paddling against the current. A flock of Canada geese parted at my approach, honking in alarm. “Kraank! Kraank! Kraank!” they went. “Honk! Honk! Honk!” I replied in my best ‘goose’. Doctor Doolittle, eat your heart out. I whooped with hysterical laughter again just to let the world know I still had a voice. But there was no-one about to hear, no-one to wonder why. This was my brother’s loss. I bet he wouldn’t get an experience like this in New Zealand. I bet he wouldn’t want to.
“Let’s kayak the Thames,” he had said on my last trip to New Zealand. He was a keen kayaker. So much so, that he spent all his free time in his sea kayak, exploring Auckland Harbour and the coastal islands. Of which there were many. From what I read in his emails, he spent most weekends paddling around beaches and bays, finding new scallop and mussel beds which he would collect and either take home and cook, or consume there and then during an overnight camp. I had always spent time on, in and under the water when I was growing up in New Zealand so had readily agreed that we should kayak the Thames now that I live in England. He was planning a trip to the UK the following summer, he said, so let’s do it then.
That left me with a year to buy a kayak, practise on the Thames and plan the trip. I seem to have always lived on or near the Thames without actually getting out on it. Firstly in London, when I lived in Chiswick (on the Thames) and enjoyed the riverside pubs from Kew to Hammersmith. Then I moved to Berkshire and lived in Cookham (also on the Thames), then Bourne End, on the Buckinghamshire side of the Thames opposite Cookham. It seems that I have been drawn instinctively to water.
So the months flew by during which time I bought a bright orange ‘Easky Venture 13’ and took it out as soon as the weather permitted. This occurred in March for me and I paddled as much of the Thames and as many local lakes and rivers as I could throughout that summer. Bray Lake, Black Swan Lake in Hurst, the Beulieu, Lymington and Cuckmere rivers on the south coast. I covered them all that summer.
However, it soon became apparent that my great kayaking brother wouldn’t be able to make it. He was having staffing difficulties at work. His partner at his law firm had only recently returned from maternity leave and his legal executive was taking a few months sabbatical that year, leaving him understaffed for the duration. His absence from his company looked more and more unlikely and the time came when I took it for granted he wouldn’t be joining me. I nevertheless continued with my plans with renewed enthusiasm as the idea of making the journey in the wrong direction took hold. If I was going to paddle a hundred and thirty five miles, it might as well have an element of the unusual about it.
There was an element of the unusual about the house that appeared on the left bank. I had paddled uneventfully through Cleeve lock a few hundred metres upstream from Goring. The lock keeper was on hand to let me through and I plunged out upstream at twenty past nine. The day was young and I had already gone through two locks and covered five miles.
I was still in uncharted territory. Off the map and in the unknown. I was paddling uphill towards Moulsford when I saw the unusual house. At first I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I even swung across to the left side of the river to take a closer look. There it was, all Egyptianate and glorious, fronted by palm trees at the top of a beautifully-manicured rolling swathe of green. Like a decorated dolls house straight from the Egyptian Middle Kingdom, resplendent with lotus topped columns, magnificent blue arches and falcon wings. I was astonished at the sheer incongruity of the thing. So out of place yet sitting in its own little environment shrugging an indifferent shoulder to the world as if to say, I don’t care, I’m proud to be Egyptian and I have money. Lots of Money. Who would build such a thing? My first thought was Mr El Fayyad, the owner of Harrods, but as he was the only wealthy Egyptian I knew, I thought that was probably an unfair assumption. I took a photo, thinking they’re not going to believe this back at the pub. Naturally enough, the sleek river launch moored in front was called ‘Nefertati’ (sic). What else? I decided it was a thing of beauty and wished the owner good luck.
The margins of the map continued to surprise. As I regained the right bank and continued on towards Moulsford, a sumptuous living room on stilts thrust out from the river bank in front of me. Its walls were made of glass and inside were soft sofas and shelves of books. A carved wooden lamp stand stood behind a leather armchair dimly lighting one end of the room. A path led from this riparian retreat back up to a modest house behind. They say people in glass houses shouldn’t, so I assumed it was not a secret love nest, but a relaxing summer house with unrivalled river views.
This was truly a land of wonder and I was reluctant to leave it and rejoin the map further ahead. Neither cataract nor kraken threatened as I passed through Moulsford and the incongruously-named Beetle & Wedge pub. I rounded the next bend and was once again confronted by my old friend Brunel. He strode the river under leaden skies in three great red brick arches outlined with white stonework. Weeds grew unchecked from the buttressing pediment of the centre arch. It looked larger than the bridge at Gatehampton, but I knew it was still not as big as our Brunel bridge at Maidenhead. I passed respectfully under its cavernous ceiling and emerged into the drizzle upstream.
I returned to the map a short way on and continued through North Stoke and Wallingford. Passing under the stone bridge there, I came across the second, but not yet my last, river encounter of the day. The Thames path, which runs uninterrupted from its source in Gloucestershire to London, was on the left bank here. Under an avenue of trees, two walkers with their heads down against the drizzling rain strode into view. Because of the large packs each carried, I assumed they were more than just day walkers. I shouted out to them.
“You look as though you’ll get there faster than I will! Where are you headed?”
They stopped and looked around, not expecting a voice from the river.
“London,” the woman replied.
“Wow! You’ve got a fair way to go yet! Where did you start from?”
“The source. Kemble.”
“How long has it taken you to get here?”
“We’ve been walking for six days so far,” the man answered. “We’ve allowed ourselves another six to get to London.”
“And you camp at campsites or on the bank?”
“Anywhere really. Pubs, campsites. We were at Clifton Hampden last night.”
There was nothing much more to say. I was impressed by their stoicism and their relaxed approach to their twelve day odyssey. I envied them their mutual comradeship.
I shouted good luck and watched them hike their back packs into position and stride off purposefully along the towpath together. The poplar trees lining the riverbank stirred in the wind, showering them with heavy droplets as they passed beneath.
A short way on, I encountered two Canadian canoes weaving uncontrollably across the river as they swept towards me. It was an amusing distraction. I’m sorry to say that I could tell they were paddled by girls. I could hear their squeals and shouts as they came closer. The lead canoe seemed almost to be in control but was having difficulty trying to hold back to guide the rear boat, which hadn’t quite mastered the art of paddling on different sides. The result was that they were pulling the boat first to the left, then, as they both changed to the other side, to the right. Oh dear, I thought, I hope they’re not planning on going far.
“Going far?” I shouted across at them.
“Oooh hallo!” one of the girls replied as she swivelled around to see who was talking. “We want to get to Pangbourne. We are being met there with the cars.”
“Do you mean there’s someone sitting there waiting for you?” I asked.
“Oh they’ll be sitting in a nice warm pub probably,” the other girl in the forward boat replied. “Is it far? Ooooh!” she squealed as the bow swung wildly across the stream.
“Well, I left there at seven thirty this morning,” I replied, “so I guess you can do it in three hours going downstream.”
They groaned in chorus and returned to the task of getting their craft pointing the right way. In a confusion of paddles, they were carried off downstream on the rolling current. I laughed to myself. As long as they didn’t capsize, they would certainly get to Pangbourne with no help from their poor paddling. I wondered, however, whether they would recognise it when they did. If they didn’t have any maps, or didn’t have any hands free to look at one if they did, they would either pass through the town without knowing it, or stop at Goring and wait in vain for their return ride.
It was encounters like that brought a little light relief to my day. A half mile ahead, I pulled up outside Benson lock wondering if I was going to have another wait, or another damaging portage, when the doors swung open and I encountered three men in a boat. They emerged in all their theatrical glory straight from the pages of Jerome K. Jerome. Striped blazers, straw boaters, each pulling on the oars.
“Guten tag,” one of them smiled over at me. Figuring these weren’t your common or garden English swanks, I replied in my best German.
“Guten tag.” Considering I had never studied German at school, that was pretty impressive. Enough to get the conversation started anyway.
“Where are you going?” I asked in amazement.
“Ya, we are going to Henley. We are going to Henley every year. It is our tradition.”
“You look good,” I laughed. “So you have read Jerome K. Jerome?”
“Ya, we know the boat story. It is tradition.”
Thinking they weren’t as fluent in English as I quite obviously was in German, I shouted ‘auf Wiedersehen!’ and waved them goodbye as they picked up their stroke and plunged downstream on their homage to tradition.
I was smiling happily as I entered the lock and the gates swung shut behind me. The lock keeper was laughing.
“At least they’re going the right way! You look as though you have a journey ahead of you. Where are you off to?”
I told him I was, indeed, on a journey and I was headed for Clifton Hampden that night.
“It’s only eight miles upstream, so I should do it in a couple of hours,” I said.
“You know the stream is getting up, don’t you? There’ll be warnings out soon.”
That put a damper on my spirits. Not really knowing whether to react to this piece of news as merely information or as an order, I said “Oh, OK, I’ll look out for them.”
By ‘warnings’, I knew he meant the yellow and red notice boards that lock keepers displayed at either end of their locks to advise boaters of the condition of the current. A yellow notice states that the stream is increasing and implies caution. Red means a strong stream, get off the river!
Nevertheless, my shoulders and arms felt relaxed and I was convinced that I could take anything the river threw at me. Even after four hours non-stop hard paddling, nothing hurt except the twinges I was experiencing in my sprained right wrist. Admittedly, at the end of each day I was fatigued, but my muscles weren’t aching nor my arms tired. Just a general feeling of exhaustion that warned me I was running out of energy and to be thinking about stopping.
I looked at my watch as I sat in the lock waiting for the waters to rise and the upstream gates to open. It was midday. I was getting hungry, so under lowering skies I paddled on upstream searching for a suitable spot where I could pull up and picnic. I found it in the form of an impressive set of sweeping stone steps dropping into the river from a landscaped lawn above. I cut across the river to the left bank. The stream wasn’t as fierce here because I had just left a lock. It wouldn’t pick up again until I approached Day’s lock at Dorchester, four miles ahead, when the torrent from the weirs would surge against me for the last mile.
Above the steps, some hundred metres off at the far end of the lawn, was a private house, so as I pulled up to the steps, I kept my head down. It was easy enough to hoist myself out of the cockpit onto the bottom step. I found a broken slab which I put on top of the rope to hold the boat, then settled down to rummaging through my supplies for something that took my fancy. Quite frankly, nothing did. It was all getting a bit boring, eating Pepperami sticks and pork pies followed by dried fruit. And that’s another thing. I was beginning to feel just a little bit queasy with all that diuretic fruit inside me. I had been nibbling bits of apricot and dates for four days now figuring it was an important source of energy and fibre but it was starting to have an undesired affect on me. I forced another Pepperami stick down. Then some cheese followed by a swig of my ginger cordial.
The river was broad and flat here. The house behind me notwithstanding, I was in splendid rural surroundings. The current was only visible midstream as it swept past but each side looked deceptively still. The far bank was bare of trees. Just reeds broken by outcrops of nettles with fields beyond. The sky was lightening but no blue was visible between the layers of grey. I rested for three quarters of an hour before packing up and pushing off into the stream. A little way on, a fisherman sat hunched under a green umbrella on the opposite bank. Keeping a respectful distance form his line and thinking I would try to learn something about his solitary pastime, I shouted out.
“What do you catch up here?” I was thinking roach, chub, pike. Maybe carp. I know nothing about this sort of fishing. They were just names to me, but I wondered if there were different fish this far upstream than down at, say, Teddington.
Without looking up, he replied: “fish.”
It was something in the way he said it that told me he wasn’t trying to be amusing in an ironic kind of way. He looked dour and miserable. Deciding to give him the benefit of the doubt, I pressed him a bit more.
“Ha ha! Do you know what they are called?” I asked innocently.
“Some of them.”
Oh dear, I thought, someone got out of bed the wrong side this morning.
“What, like ‘Collin or Trevor’? I suggested. “Or maybe ‘Smartass’?”
“F*ck off!”
He definitely wasn’t having a good day but I couldn’t help thinking that he wasn’t making much of an effort to be civil. After all, I had only tried to be friendly. To bridge the cultural gap between normal humans and saddos who sit in the rain for days on end because they have no friends.
“Well that would probably explain why you are sitting in the rain on your own, you miserable bastard,” I replied as I started paddling again. I had gone only a short distance when a stone landed with a splash in the water beside me. I didn’t have one to throw back, so I laughed out loud instead.
It started raining again as I paddled on for another hour towards Day’s lock. Under Shillingford bridge and through several meanders, passing lush islands and wet grassy banks. I noted a number of good camping spots here. On the islands as well as along the river bank. The prerequisite for a good camping spot being an easy mooring for the kayak and a bank low enough to hoist myself onto. Then a bit of flat space for a tent, hopefully hidden from possessive farmers by sheltering trees.
I also noted that this was the first part of my journey where the wind was at my back. It had started in gusts then settled down to a steady blow that propelled me forward and counteracted the strength of the current. Paddling on up past where the River Thame joins its big cousin, I finally reached Day’s lock, where I had learnt when I was planning this trip that the campsite on the lock island was closed this year due to tree felling. That had been a shame, as Day’s lock had been the original option for the end of my third day. With my well-researched itinerary now well behind schedule, that possibility was out of the question anyway. I was rethinking my day’s end as I went along, depending on the progress I was making. Today, I would be happy to get to Clifton Hampden. Then I would have to resign myself to reaching Lechlade on Saturday afternoon instead of Friday. Not too much of a problem, but I might have to reconsider the foray up to Cricklade.
The lock keeper was obviously sitting in his warm little shed, eating doughnuts and listening to Girls Aloud on his iPod when I pulled up at the gates. I waved my paddle in the air, hoping he would catch a glimpse of yellow above his Daily Mirror. I held it standing upright on the deck for a while, but still no signs of life from the lock. No torrent of water from the sluices to tell me he was on the job. Five minutes passed as I sat huddled in the wind and rain holding paddle aloft. Eventually I fumbled for my waterproof pouch and phoned him. I could hear the outside telephone bell on the lock island ringing loudly. Surely that would be heard over the music in his ears? Eventually Girls Aloud came to the end of their song and the telephone bell intruded. After half a dozen rings he answered the phone.
“Hello. Day’s lock.”
“Hello,” I replied testily. “If you look out your window, you’ll see one very small, bright orange kayak sitting in the rain, wet, miserable and waiting to come through your lock.”
Pause.
“Oh, right. I didn’t see you. I can only see big boats with masts. Coming.”
What? Masts? How many sailing boats does he get through here, I wondered? Perhaps his lock keeper training only stretched to square-riggers and feluccas? Wondering what he was talking about, I patiently waited while the gates yawned open.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “Not such a nice day for it.” He was large and bewhiskered like a walrus and wrapped up in the traditional storm jacket under a sou’wester. He lumbered to the other end to open the sluices while I braced myself midstream for the torrent.
Day’s lock was at a sharp right angle bend in the river where it turned northward again after a temporary westerly stretch upstream of Shillingford. Then a great arcing curve that would take me to my campsite at Clifton Hampden. That was just under three miles away. It was twenty past two.
Across the fields on the right somewhere was the Roman town of Dorchester, a one-street village lined with antique shops, estate agents and pubs I had visited many times. The left bank was dominated by two hills, called Whittenham Clump and Castle Hill with its outline of an ancient fort. I had taken the children there to fly kites when they were younger and spending time with their father was an exciting adventure. From the top of the hill, the kites would launch easily into the sky, pulled by a wind that had raced unimpeded across the flat countryside beyond and was forced upwards by the steep slopes.
I wrote in my journal that night that the wind and rain set in as I exited Day’s lock for the final push around that sweeping curve to Clifton Hampden.
‘Rain. Westerly wind pushed me onto the right bank. Flat fields offered no barrier. Wanted to hug left bank where the current was less strong but was stung by nettles. Power strokes, pitiful progress. Bow of kayak pushed relentlessly to the right. Carolyn and I had walked around this stretch of the river last year when the skylarks were singing. A gentle amble in bright sunshine. Now a mad thrashing of the paddles. Head bowed, foggy spectacles, clothes sticking to me in sodden layers. Crawled sluggishly passed familiar gates and stiles. I recognised houses on the opposite bank from that sunny day in June. Rain turned torrential. Creating a haze over the surface of the water. Clouds so low there was no view ahead. Progress was interminable as I inched closer to the campsite. Somewhere on my right was Burcot village. Still no tell-tale view of the bridge at Clifton Hampden. Heard a car on a road. After a while, wind began dying down. Gusting. Finally saw the red brick bridge ahead. Reminiscent of Brunel, but not. Pointed arches. Built thirty years after Maidenhead, Gatehampton and Moulsford. Arrived campsite 3.45. Nearly 1 ½ hours to go three miles. Not good!’
Upstream of the bridge was a large area of lawn with a few caravans and tents. I cruised the length of the bank for a suitable embarkation point and settled on a small inlet under a large poplar tree. Beaching the nose of Karot up the muddy slope, I heaved myself carefully out and stepped into the warm water. Figuring a campsite called ‘Bridge House Campsite’ involved a house beside a bridge, I dragged Karot up onto the grass and wandered over to find the owner.
The lawn was sodden with the recent downpour. Ducks and chicken scattered underfoot. Treading carefully to avoid the puddles and the poo, I reached the house and knocked on the door. A voice like gravel cried out. “THE WINDOW!”
Standing back, I looked for the appropriate window. Not this side of the house. I walked around the other side and saw a small kitchen window open. Leaning forward on the sill to squint into the gloom, I saw a monster of a woman, red-faced and rolling with fat, sitting on a specially-designed, reinforced high chair, eating various items of food. I say ‘items’ because none of it was recognisable. Possibly bits of meat, or fruit. Wait, that might be bread. The house looked bare, unkempt. Stone floor, no ornaments. She barely paused in her eating.
“Twelve pounds,” she barked.
“Pardon?,” I said, taken aback at her brusqueness. “Oh yes, right. OK, I’ll get it. Where can I pitch my tent?”
“Late lunch,” she grunted.
“What? Yes. I‘ve already had mine,” I replied.
“Anywhere you like!”
“I’ll be ten minutes,” I replied, wanting to unpack and put my tent up first.
“Pub up the road!”
“Yes.” My well-researched itinerary had told me that the Barley Mow next door was another landmark in the Jerome K. Jerome saga. I backed off and returned to my kayak. The tent always came first. I wandered across the lawn looking at the shrubs and trees dotted around. I decided on a particularly leafy tree that would give me shelter from any wind and where the ground beneath was reasonably flat. I released the tent from its zippered nylon bag and it instantly ‘sproinged’ into shape. I could then lift it into any position or angle I wanted. When I was satisfied, I unzipped it and placed inside the dry bags I had brought up from the kayak.
It took only one more trip back across the lawn to the river’s edge to retrieve the rest of my possessions. Once meticulously stowed in their proper place inside the tent, I hung my wet nylon parka and buoyancy vest on a branch of the tree behind, blew up my Lilo and laid out my sleeping bag. As it wasn’t very cold, I had been using it unzipped as a duvet as it was more comfortable in the night. Lying back, I pulled off my wet clothes and changed into my warm and dry cotton ‘civvies’. I pulled a slightly soggy twenty pound note from the Velcro compartment of my buoyancy jacket and splashed across the grass back to the window. A heap of what looked like regurgitated sardines lay on the windowsill. For a cat, I assumed.
Jabba the Hutt lurched out of her high chair and waddled over to the window.
“Twenty pounds!” she barked, picking at the sardines and licking her fingers.
“What? I thought you said twelve?”
“Eight pounds change.”
“Oh. Right.” I was having trouble keeping up with this sophisticated rhetoric.
“Haven’t got a fiver. Skint.”
“I’m sorry to hear that, but, um…”
“Have to give you coins.”
I asked if there was anywhere I could dry my clothes.
“Dryer in the toilet block. Takes pound coins. Showers, 20p.” As she had only given me pound coins, I would have to get some change at the Barley Mow. Tough.
Feeling refreshed and dry, I zipped up the tent, squelched across the soggy lawn with my laundry to the toilet block. I discovered that I could have a cold shower for free, so I locked the door, undressed and let the chill water wash off the labours of the day. After a painful shave with soap that didn’t quite lather, I quickly dried myself and dressed. I was shivering, a sure sign that my energy reserves were a bit low. The laundry room was at the other end of the toilet block. I loaded my saturated shirt, shorts, gloves and towel into the dryer. It would take twenty minutes on a pound coin, so I wandered out the gate and back along the road to check out the Barley Mow. It was only twenty metres away and it had a menu board of such range and variety, I wondered how I would get through it all. This was rapidly turning into my best night. A condemned man ordering his last meal couldn’t ask for more. I had also been told the campsite boasted a breakfast café, but couldn’t find it. I returned and walked between the tightly-packed mobile homes that occupied the far end of the grounds where I came across an old bloke tending his pot plants.
“No mate. Not that I know of. You’ve got the Barley Mow. They might do breakfasts.” I had been misinformed.
The clothes took another pound coin to dry, during which time I returned and sat at the door of my tent smoking a cigar and planning the next day’s itinerary.
By the time five o’clock came around, I was hungry and keen to relax in the pub. I lay my dry clothes in the tent, zipped it shut and walked back through the gate and up the road to the pub. The warm air embraced me. It smelt of soggy carpet and camaraderie even though there were no customers yet. It was a bit early for after work drinkers or for diners. I wanted to savour the occasion so I ordered a pint of cider.
“Can I get you something before the mad rush?” I asked the barmaid casually. She wasn’t a pretty blonde this time, but a pretty, dark-haired girl instead. She was slim yet buxom enough to fit the job description. I was glad I had taken the time to shave earlier and that I hadn’t yet lost the art of stringing a coherent sentence together.
“Well, thank you. I don’t mind if I do. I’ll join you with half a pint of cider,” she smiled.
“Is the kitchen open yet?” I was actually starving, but didn’t want to order too soon otherwise I would be back at my tent ready for bed before six o’clock.
“Yes,” she replied, handing me my pint and taking my money. “Will you be wanting to eat?”
“You bet, I’m starving,” I said, then added for no other reason than to keep the conversation going, “I’ve been paddling up the river all day.” I know it sounded a bit of showy-offy but I had nothing else to talk about except lock keepers and Brunel railway bridges. Call me old-fashioned, but she didn’t seem the sort of person who would be interested in Brunel’s brick arches. I may be wrong.
“I hope you’ve got something big and hearty?” I continued, trying to keep my eyes off her swelling cleavage as she handed me my change.
“Ooh yes, you’ll be wanting the chef’s pie then,” she suggested as she pulled her half pint. “Only it isn’t the chef’s, he walked out this morning. But it’s hearty, and big.”
I looked up. “He walked out? Why?”
“Oh you know, temperamental chefs!,” she said dismissively, taking the first sip of her cider. “He disagreed with the owner about something. I don’t know, but there was a big argument.”
“He was probably having trouble with such a big menu,” I ventured. “You know, too much cooking for too few people?”
“The owner isn’t happy. He has to do all the cooking himself now.”
“Where did the chef go?” I asked. “Has he been seen since the argument?”
“Oh no. He’s gone.”
“Not into the pie I hope,” I said. She laughed and took another sip of her cider. “I’ll get the menu for you.” I gulped down the rest of my drink while she returned with a large sheet of parchment-coloured card printed up with a myriad delicious dishes. We chatted some more about how far I had come today and what was it like on the river, until another customer came in and demanded her attention. I moved over to a small table by the window to enjoy the rest of my pint and study my map.
The river continued looping on south from Clifton Hampden, before meandering westward through Culham and on up north again through Abingdon. I had never been to Abingdon. Who had? Don’t they make carpets there? After Abingdon it was a long haul northwards up through Oxford to my next campsite at Eynsham on the northernmost reach of the Thames. That was twenty miles away. From there on, it would be a gentle wander through the green fields of the Cotswolds to Lechlade another twenty five miles further on. If everything went according to my continuously revised plan, I would arrive on Saturday evening instead of Friday but that was OK as it would be easy enough for Carolyn to reschedule the welcome party she was planning. On Saturday night I would stay at a campsite beside the Trout Inn a couple of hundred metres downstream of Lechlade. The next morning, Sunday, the plan went, I would pack up and make my foray upstream towards Cricklade as far as I could go.
I had attempted this before during a sunny day in summer when the water was warm and clear enough to swim in. I had paddled against an increasingly strong current as the river grew shallower and narrower the further upstream I pushed. I was still ten miles from Cricklade when I gave up and turned back, satisfied that I had taken the journey as far as I sensibly could. I glided back to Lechlade on a speeding stream in half the time it had taken me to go upstream. I was so warm and relaxed, enjoying the glorious isolation, that I stopped a couple of times along the way for a swim. I lay on the grass afterwards, letting the warm sun dry my skin.
I had visions of doing the same on Sunday, although I was realistic enough to realise the swim would not be on the agenda. I figured I would be able to return to Lechlade in plenty of time for lunch and to meet the welcome party at the Riverside pub.
The slim and thoroughly buxom barmaid came over to take my order. “So,” she smiled, “do you see anything you fancy?”
Biting my tongue, I said, “Hmmm, it all looks so tempting, but I’ll go for the pie then.” I ordered a starter of sardines done Mediterranean style and settled back while she topped up my glass again.
The pie was as warm and fulsome as the barmaid. A huge bowl of wholesome beef swimming in rich brown gravy underneath a flaky golden crust with green and orange vegetables piled precariously around the edge of the plate and accompanied by a generous side order of buttery mashed potato. I made short work of it, but must admit to struggling a bit towards the end. It was delicious and I was in paradise. It was barely dusk and I had no desire to return to my little tent so early.
I walked over to the bar and complimented the barmaid on her menu choice while she filled my glass again. It was a pleasant way to spend an evening. I was warm and dry, well fed and feeling fit. I am sure a charming little village with its church spire lay over the bridge and we were surrounded by beautiful countryside, although I was in no mood to go wandering now. That, for another time. I would return here one sunny summer’s day with Carolyn under less pressured circumstances and perhaps take a room upstairs in memory of tonight.
The bar was slowly filling up. A number of locals were sitting at tables and leaning on the bar engaged in lively conversation as if the whole purpose of their day was to be here doing this now. They looked relaxed and natural in that low-ceilinged, dimly-lit room surrounded by familiarity and friends. The barmaid finished her cider in between serving customers and came over to thank me again.
“No, thank you. It’s been nice talking to you,” I said, “I’m Andrew, by the way, just in case you read about me disappearing over a weir in the local paper.”
“Ooh, I hope not,” she replied. “I’m Rosie. I live in the village. Good luck with the rest of your trip.”
I left the embrace of Barley Mow pub and walked across the squelching grass to my tent. It was twilight and I hadn’t needed the torch I carried with me. I sat in the entrance of my tent smoking a cigar and sipping my whisky while a couple of ducks eyed me warily, wondering if I was going to offer treats or threats.
I received another visitor too. After offering the ducks no violence (I was, after all, well fed myself and not inclined to break out the orange sauce), they settled down on a puddle a little way off and watched as a woman approached from the caravan opposite.
“Hello, I saw you arrive in that kayak over there,” she said conversationally. She was dressed smartly, in her sixties and spoke with an accent from somewhere south of Watford Gap.
“Hello,” I replied, “yes, that’s me. Is that your caravan?”
“Yes. We saw you sitting here and thought you might need warming up. Would you like to come over for a drink?” She was being genuinely kind and I was touched. However, I could see me sitting in their warm caravan trying to maintain a conversation and slowly dozing off. I thought it would be rude to be that rude, so I regretfully declined her invitation. Besides, I didn’t want to break my routine. I was fed and relaxed and ready for sleep. We talked some more. Her name was Gill and she and her partner loved caravanning and walking and touring the country staying at campsites. They were from Kent. Nothing wrong with that, it just vindicated my guess at her accent.
The fourth night
After Gill left, I sat for a short while finishing my cigar and looking out over the expanse of lawn to the river beyond. The light was on in their caravan and shadows moved about behind the curtains. Further on, near the water’s edge, a van had pulled up earlier beside a tent. A young couple had got out and disappeared inside. Other than that, the campsite was devoid of any other signs of activity. The river slid inexorably on, carrying it’s brown burden down to London.
‘I get weary and sick of tryin’, I’m tired of livin’ and scared of dyin’. But ol’ man river, he just keeps rollin’ along’.
Sun or rain. Night or day. Relentlessly rolling along.
I sat there listening to the sounds of the night and wondering what the world was doing beyond the river banks. My world was confined to the thoughts in my head and my thoughts never ranged beyond the reeds and trees on my left and right. A breeze stirred the leaves above me and drops of water splattered noisily onto the taut nylon. A car crossed the bridge beyond the river bank where the Karot was lying. Its headlights casting a green illumination on the underside of the willow trees that lined the opposite bank.
I had heard no news for four days yet everything still seemed to be operating OK. The locks opened and closed the same as they presumably did last week when the media was weighing me down by the melancholies of the ‘credit crunch’ and impending recession. The sun would still rise tomorrow, albeit covered by a blanket of grey nimbostratus clouds. Carolyn would wake in the morning, alone, thinking of me as I have been waking, alone, thinking of her. I was looking forward to Lechlade.
For some unaccountable reason the ducks in the puddle in front of me took it upon themselves to wake up and make a fuss. With gentle quacking, the pair dithered for a while before tentatively deciding that I was worth another investigation. They waddled closer looking for food or warmth. They would get neither, but it was nice to have their company. I talked to them softly, expecting some form of understanding on their behalf, but they just looked at me stupidly and murmured a few desultory quacks to each other before twitching their tails and moving further afield for sustenance. Try the caravan, I suggested, blowing a puff of smoke in their direction.
It was still dusk when I crawled into the tent and zipped it shut. I had never gone to bed so early, but I didn’t want Gill in the caravan to think I was making excuses when I said I was tired. Besides, the time between paddling and sleeping was a rare moment of unlaboured reflection. I could think over the incidents of the day then drop off to a colourful sleep where characters and events scrambled to find their right places in my brain before settling down as comfortable memories.
It had been a long wet slog today. From my ‘free’ camp at Whitchurch lock, I had risen early to cover the big northward climb through Goring, Wallingford and Benson, past the confluence of the River Thame and under two Brunel bridges to rest on the shoulder of the river at Clifton Hampden. It had been a day of meetings and not-quite-met-monsters. I had talked to walkers and wankers, Germans in costumes and girls in canoes, and wandered off the map into uncharted territory before arriving here and being embraced into the munificent bosom of Jabba the Hutt. Yet I had only travelled seventeen miles. It was the shortest day so far.
I often wondered, as I was splashing along, if any of my children would have maintained the pace I was keeping if one of them had joined me. They were all big enough. In fact, Ed had said that he wanted to join me, but the idea fizzled out under the unremitting pressure of his active social life. Other than a short paddle at my canoe club in Windsor one weekend in summer, he subsequently hadn’t found time in his diary to come out on the river again with me. It would have been good. Maybe he’ll want to paddle the Thames when he is older and, remembering that his old dad had done it once, invite me to join him?
I plugged in my iPod and lay in my warm tent letting Meat Loaf and Duffy serenade me to sleep and wondering what tomorrow held in store.
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