Day Three
Alligators and ghosts
It wasn’t. I awoke the next morning to the same oppressive sky. After a banana, a muesli bar and a tin of baked beans for breakfast, I used the toilet block before decamping and packing the Karot. I was out of the side channel and paddling up flat water by seven thirty. Thinking I must get to Wargrave quickly so as to make up lost time, then forge on to Benson tonight, I almost missed the lock keeper walking across the weir bridge over to my right. He had a small dog with him and waved over to me. To be honest, I don’t remember what he looked like from the previous night, but I raised my paddle in acknowledgement just in case. Then he confirmed to me that he must be the lock keeper by shouting across to me: “Did you remember the key?”
“Of course,” I shouted back. “Above the door.” I didn’t break stroke as I was keen to keep moving, but he seemed satisfied. I had placed the key on the top of the door frame as instructed after I had used the bathroom and packed the Karot. There was only one other tent, a large family one, around the other side of the small wood but I hadn’t seen any comings or goings since I arrived. Once everything was stowed away and I had crossed the bridge to return the key, I relocked the heavy iron gate with the massive padlock and dropped into the Karot.
I was soon paddling between tree-lined river banks and passing under the shadow of Danesfield house on my way to Hambleden lock. The serpentine river snaked between flat fields and wood-covered hills. It was a peaceful time of day, still and strangely empty. Just me and the river. That’s the thing about this trip, I thought. My universe had shrunk to the confines of the river bank, focusing my mind on the immediate vicinity. There may be villages, towns and cities beyond, but they didn’t impinge on my reality. Like a blinkered horse, I progressed through the landscape in blissful ignorance of the world beyond. Large cities were only a distant hum beyond my horizon. Adjacent villages were only visible as a church spire behind sheltering trees - a small part of the silently passing landscape.
Sometimes, walkers or fishermen confronted my silent world. On several occasions, I had come around a bend, hugging the bank, only to draw up abruptly as I encountered long fishing poles thrusting out from the bank. With a bit of furious back-paddling, I swung out into the channel to give them a wide birth, only occasionally getting a nod of thanks in return.
On one occasion on the stretch up to Hambleden, I rounded a bend when a stick splashed in the water in front of me.
“Oops, sorry,” a lady on the towpath exclaimed. She was walking her dog and was getting it to fetch. “I didn’t see you.” She was an attractive blonde. In her forties, slim, wearing jeans, a quilted jacket and a smile.
“That’s OK. As long as you don’t expect me to fetch it,” I said, slowing down respectfully. The dog had blissfully plunged in and returned to the bank where it dropped the stick at the lady’s feet and shook the water off its coat. She stepped back, gasping at the shower of water. The dog pranced happily around her encouraging her to throw the stick again. She picked it up and looked up at me.
“You can if you want to,” she smiled. “You look as though you can handle the water,”
“Ha ha, thank you,” I replied. “You look pretty fit yourself.”
She smiled and threw the stick beside my boat. I laughed, shouted “Missed!” and powered on to Hambleden Lock, wondering why there seemed to be a surfeit of attractive blondes on this trip. I heard, then saw, flocks of ring-necked parakeets shrieking overhead. There’s quite a population of these extravagant escapees in the south of England where they have been breeding successfully for decades. We get them around Maidenhead and I know there’s a big population in Windsor Great Park. They originated in Kent where they escaped from private collections and have spread north and west across the country since.
The still morning delivered more denizens of the river. Several jays, our most colourful crow, flashed past overhead and disappeared into a wooded island midstream. A short while later, having just emerged around a bend, a green woodpecker with its distinctive undulating flight cut across the water ahead of me and disappeared into the dense foliage of a large oak.
I paddled on. The metronomic splish splash of my paddles lulled me into a poetic reverie. Running out of things to occupy my mind, I turned to the difficult task of putting a more onomatopoeic sound to the noise of the paddles. ‘Splash’ was a start, as was ‘splish’. But they failed to capture the surging sound, the churning noise, as the paddle pulled backwards through the water. Maybe a kind of amalgam of ‘surge’ and ‘churn’? ‘Surn’? ‘Churgh’?
I slid past several islands on the way to Hambleden lock. I noted that one in particular would have been ideal for camping because it had grassy pull-up places used by large river craft for overnight moorings.
I continued my rhythmic strokes and, with nothing better to occupy my peaceful mind, I felt a little ditty coming on. I played with the words in my head. Slowly, verse at a time, I began to build up something that fell into rhythm with my motion and the relentless ‘splurgh’ of the paddles.
Splish splash
Ahead I dash
To never stop
Nor ever drop
To carry on
And on and on
Further on
And then some more
Always strong
Always sure
Splurgh, splurgh
I forward surge
Against the tide
I gamely glide
Passing swan
I carry on
Passing boat
And duck
I note
My arms don’t tire
No aching dire
Splish splash
My paddles flash
I feel so good
I knew I would
Thru waters cool
My paddles pull
O’er surface green
I live my dream
To make a splash
To be quite rash
Up and down
My dipping oar
Drives my hopes
In rhythmic score
Splurgh splurgh
I hum my dirge
About the tide
And testing ride
I had the thought
As well I ought
That the hard way on
Is better done
Than easy life
That’s never fought
Nor easy race
That’s always won
Splish splash
I’ll have a bash
To end my strife
With goal achieved
And live my life
A man believed
I ran out of rhyme at this point and moved my attention to the names of boats once more. I was passing marinas and small jetties lined with moored craft. I had already noted ‘Fuda’, ‘Freda’ and ‘Fifibelle’ today before I came across an enclave of working class names: ‘Robbo’, ‘Len’ and ‘Matt’. They sat solid and self-effacing, with their sleeves rolled up ready for a bit of hard graft. Narrow boats slid silently downstream trailing a cloud of blue smoke. I had passed many with romantic names of Celtic origin. ‘Penpergwm’ and ‘Pantygasseg’ after villages in some Welsh valley. Many, such as ‘Mallard’, ‘Bandy Coot’, ‘Corncrake’ and ‘Widgeon’ had water fowl connections. The drivers always gave me a cheery wave or shouted some jokey remark such as: “You’ll go faster backwards if you stop paddling!” Or: “No wonder you’re not getting anywhere, you’ve lost your motor!” Some of these traditional craft were obviously holiday hires, a fact that was proven watching the occupants clumsily negotiating a lock. Others were riparian residences that plied the waterways on an endless journey for the next mooring. These were driven by grizzled, unshaven men in baggy moleskin trousers and tartan shirts, usually with small dogs standing statuesque on the roof.
I covered the four miles to Hambleden lock in one hour and forty minutes. Not exactly fast, but the current seemed to be pushing harder. I looked at the sky: heavy, white rain-bearing cumulus clouds drifted across an otherwise blue sky. There’s still the possibility that it will pass overhead, dump its burden further north and leave me with fine weather this afternoon and for the remainder of the trip.
At Hambleden lock, I knew there was a swift current from a series of long weirs off to the right. I had negotiated it one day back in June when we had some particularly heavy rain for a few days and the Thames was swollen and turbulent with brown floodwaters streaming in from the dozens of tributaries that laced the countryside. As I had approached, the force of the weir stream had hit my kayak and pushed me towards the left bank. It had taken all my strength then to keep on course and maintain forward momentum. But it was a day trip and had been an adventure with no consequences, so it didn’t matter if I made it or not. I did, though, grunting and sweating until I reached the lock.
Today, the weir stream was as strong as it was in June, but I had the advantage of knowing it was there and preparing myself by sneaking up on it from the right bank before plunging through the cross current and reaching the shelter of the mooring jetty before it swept me against the opposite side. I had to wake up the lock keeper though, even though it was past nine o’clock. There is a fold-down sign on lock gates that tells river users if the lock keeper is on duty or not. Folded down to reveal the orange disc for no, he’s not on duty. Folded up covering itself, and therefore white, for yes, he is available to operate the lock. The orange disc was still displayed. It seems they knock off early and start late in this neck of the woods. After whistling loudly and waiting patiently for five minutes, I accepted that he wasn’t going to show, so I reluctantly climbed out of the Karot and heaved myself onto the jetty. I tied the nose rope to a bollard and trotted up the steps to see who was around. He walked out of his comfortable little shed as I reached the top step.
“I didn’t think you were here,” I said. “Your orange board is still showing.”
“Sorry, didn’t see you there,” he replied.
“I can do the gates if you like,” I offered. I was a dab hand with lock gates now, after operating them at Old Windsor.
“No, that’s OK, I’ll do them. Where are you off to?” he asked as he pressed the button that opened the downstream sluices.
“Lechlade. I’m paddling up the Thames for charity. Started at Teddington on Monday.” I told him as I turned to walk down the steps to the Karot, grimacing as I heard the familiar: “Most people do it the other way”.
Once out the other side, I continued around the great arching curve of the river at Remenham where I encountered more rowers and scullers out practising their sport. Not school children these, but fit-looking girls and muscular men intent on their strokes and moving at a pace I could only envy, even going upstream. It occurred to me that they were from the famous Leander Rowing Club at Henley ahead. I made steady progress around that bend, then up the long mile of the Henley Regatta course to the bridge and the familiar Little Angel pub on the other side. It was just gone ten o’clock when I entered Marsh Lock another mile further on.
I realised that I was travelling through smaller and smaller towns as I progressed. Windsor was smaller than London. Maidenhead was smaller than Windsor. Marlow smaller than Maidenhead, and Henley smaller still. Then on an ever-decreasing scale, I would pass through Sonning, Benson and Eynsham. Of course Reading up ahead was an unhelpful anomaly and illustrious Oxford, although large, could be excused anything. Oxford would be my last urban sprawl before reaching the sun-kissed wheat fields and rural splendour of the Cotswolds where otters romped and damselflies danced along the river banks. In this Oxfordshire idyll, the Thames took on a much more humble aspect, not yet the huge historic waterway known to the world, but rather an unassuming local stream largely untouched by man. No urban sprawl or unsightly industry along the river bank. No noise or nuisance. Just sparkling waters tinkling through a pastoral paradise.
It was ten thirty and I didn’t have to wake the lock keeper up at Marsh Lock. He was a she, another assistant, she informed me. Marsh Lock seemed quite narrow, hard up against the left bank and overshadowed by towering trees. A wide weir raged noisily off to the right and a long, high footbridge connected the lock island to the Henley bank. I went through by myself, chatting to the lady as she walked its length to operate the buttons that opened the head sluice and gate. I steadied the boat as the turbulent water rushed towards me, all the time telling her about my trip and exchanging pleasantries. The water was flat and peaceful as I glided out. It was always a joy to be on the upstream side of a lock where the waters were calmer, stilled, as they were, by the gates and the weir system. Once released downstream, the current became much more urgent for half a mile of so until it once again settled down to a more sedate pace.
Half a mile upstream of Marsh Lock was the Hennerton backwater, a narrow side stream that left the main river and skirted around the back of a large island to enter the Thames another mile further on. I decided to take it, hoping that my well-researched itinerary was accurate when it said it was canoable. Once I pulled off the main stream and plunged into its dappled shade, the wind dropped and an eerie stillness settled around me. There was no discernable current and the dank, green smell of rotting vegetation hung in the air.
You know those American films set in the Everglades where an unwitting hero paddles through a dripping swamp hung with vines and ringing to the sounds of cicadas, only to be attacked by a giant alligator he has to wrestle before fighting his way to shore and rescuing his girlfriend who is being tortured by a family of slack-jawed in-breds? Well, it was like that, in a more gentle, English way. And without the alligator. Or the in-breds. Hopefully. It probably wasn’t even deep enough for an alligator of any threatening size and the ducks seemed quite happy to float on the surface of the clear, clean water.
After a time of silent, gentle paddling, I came to smooth, manicured lawns that rolled down to the bank. Set high up at the back, large expensive houses gazed commandingly over the countryside. Gardeners were at work in several of them, mowing acres of grass and trimming hedges. I paddled silently on, not wanting to disturb the tranquillity or the alligators. On the right was the broad flat island created by the backwater, where cows grazed and birds flew between the trees. A quick flash caught my eye and I looked up just in time to see a hobby wheeling above the treetops and out over the fields to disappear across the river beyond. That’s another ‘tick’ for this trip. A ‘B-list’ bird. Birds on my ‘B-list’ birds are not particularly rare or out of season in any way, but nevertheless always a joy to see. The hobby joined a list that so far included green woodpeckers, grey wagtails and jays; flashy but shy birds you need patience to spot. ‘B-listers’ were a cut above the ubiquitous ‘C-list’ birds such as mallards, swans and wood pigeons that surround us every day. I wasn’t expecting to see any A-list birds. I would have to go to the Isles of Scilly in spring to see those.
The gentle backwater wound its way through willows and reeds and saucer-like lily pads, past a pleasure craft small enough to navigate the narrow channel. It was a relaxing and other-worldly experience, only tempered by a nagging doubt that I wouldn’t be able to enter the Thames upstream. That there was a weir or some sort of low bridge or other man-made blockage that would force me to turn back. An irritated duck quacked at me as I slid silently by. I quacked back as it floated to the side of the stream out of my way. It returned my sound with another, more muted quack. Not realising I could speak ‘duck’, I quacked again, twice. It fixed me with a quizzical eye from the safety of the bank and decided to let my last comment pass. It was obviously aware that I was the alpha duck here and wasn’t prepared to debate the point.
I continued on. I had lifted the skeg to negotiate better the tight zigs-zags between private back gardens and secluded houses hidden amongst the willows. The stream was little more that a shallow ditch at some points and my paddles dragged the grass and lilies that grew on the bottom.
After twenty minutes, I came to a low arched footbridge which I could only just duck under as I glided through and out into a working marina where boats were moored along both banks. Up ahead was the St George and the Dragon pub at Wargrave where I would pause for morning tea. It was a quarter past eleven and I had only eaten a banana and a muesli bar for breakfast at Hurley Lock that morning. Still sheltered from the main stream by a small island, I paddled the few hundred metres to the mooring steps below the pub. It was intermittently sunny and cloudy with a gusting wind that sent crazed patterns skimming across the water. I ate another muesli bar and a pork pie on the steps. A young lad was mowing the grass verge behind me and the smell brought back memories of childhood. I had earned my pocket money mowing our family lawn and washing my father and mother’s cars. I had hated it when dad had bought a large American ‘Rambler’. It was so wide, I couldn’t even reach across the roof and didn’t think it was fair that I was being paid the same money as his previous, smaller, Vauxhall.
Upstream a short distance was Shiplake lock. This was where I was going to start my theoretical day but it was already eleven thirty and to set the clock to zero now would mean I would have to paddle until seven thirty to reach the destination I had scheduled. I had my doubts I could do that on top of the four hours I had already put in. Besides, I would have to paddle the last hour or so in twilight and pitch my tent in the dark; something I didn’t relish. I knew I would have to rethink my itinerary yet again and either find a closer campsite or free camp somewhere along the way. I knew free camping, in itself, wouldn’t be difficult as there were plenty of islands and fields after Reading which I could surely reach.
I wasn’t looking forward to Shiplake Lock. It was here that my mistrust of lock keepers originated. I had paddled up to it on a couple of occasions in the past with the intention of going through, only to have the lock keeper ignore me. The first time, I was a hundred metres behind a boat that was entering from downstream, so I paddled like mad to catch up only to see the gates swing closed behind it when I was only a short distance away. All my whistling and shouting didn’t seem to attract the lock keeper’s attention. On another weekend in summer, the gates were already shut so I waited tactfully downstream to see if anything came through from upstream. After 10 minutes, I figured not. I couldn’t rouse the lock keeper that time either nor could I be bothered to get out and see if he was around, so I turned and headed back to Marsh Lock at Henley where I had parked my car.
Hoping I wouldn’t have a rude welcome this time, I paddled towards the lock in an increasingly blustery head wind. As I rounded the bend, I spied a large floating gin palace lumbering slowly towards the lock. Here we go, I thought, as I increased my speed, pulling harder on the paddles to catch up. I’ll show that lock keeper. He can’t stop me from getting through the lock if I ride tandem with a boat. I leant forward to get a stronger pull on the paddle. In this position, I could not only put more leverage into the stroke, but increase the length and therefore my speed. Normally I lean back so the top of the seat supports the small of my back and puts less strain on it over an eight hour paddling day. However, this was different. After a few minutes I was actually gaining on the boat as it crept slowly towards the lock. I could see that the gates were already open in anticipation. But something was wrong. The boat swung unexpectedly to one side, before righting itself and swinging precariously in the other direction. I was behind it now and the lock keeper was standing above me overseeing the operation.
“Keep back!” he shouted. “Hold up over there!” I pulled up against the mooring jetty while the huge pleasure craft hit the reverse throttle in a cloud of diesel. Its nose was touching the side of the gate and a man was trying to push it free as it lurched forward again and attempted to swing right. As the boat tentatively inched its way inside the lock, scraping the lock wall along the way, the lock keeper shouted something else at me. I released my hold on the jetty and pushed off into the lock behind the boat.
“See what I mean,” he said as the boat pulled forward into the lock. I realised he was referring to the amateur attempt at steering the large craft. I noticed that the woman was driving and her husband fending off. That’s not something that usually happens on the water. It’s usually the only time brow-beaten men can dress in uniforms and order their wives about. Not so here. He seemed content to take a back seat and let the wife do the driving. Albeit not very well. Maybe he was giving her lessons, I thought. The lock keeper rolled his eyes at me.
“Yes,” I said conspiratorially. “Not the best bit of navigating I’ve seen today. I’ll stay back here shall I?”
Once the gates were shut and the water had risen to near full, I inched my way forward, intending to break free ahead of the boat. Sure enough, I was out of the lock and a few hundred metres upstream before it had managed to exit the gates. I could only imagine what the conversation must have been like on board that day.
On the other side of the lock, the sky opened up and the rain began falling in great heavy drops that calmed the turbulent river and created concentric ringlets across its surface. In a few seconds, my glasses were dripping with water and vision became difficult. The gin palace motored idly past, its occupants relaxed and dry, waving cheerily. I thought I should put on my nylon parka. I looked along the bank for a place to pull up so I wouldn’t be left drifting back downstream as I got dressed. I spied a low footbridge over a ditch that entered the river ahead. I swung the bow into the gap and edged under the sheltering arch where I pulled my parka out from under my splash guard and put it on over my sodden life vest. The hood gave my glasses some protection. Not ever wanting to give in to the rain (I had a feeling there would be more of it to come) lest I waste valuable time from my schedule, I immediately pushed backwards out into the torrent in time to see through the curtain of rain a large party boat drift past downstream on its way to Henley where, no doubt, the revellers would disembark to continue their merry-making in a warm hotel. Misty figures on deck under the sheltering awning looked down on me casually, perhaps wondering what a bright orange kayak was doing out in this weather – perhaps not. Just looking at me and then at the swans that were moving toward shelter at the side of the river behind me. Then perhaps casually observing the rolling lawn that ran up to Shiplake House and the college before idly turning to their companions and refilling their glasses.
I battled on to Sonning lock in the rain. It didn’t make much difference to my progress, it just made it wet. The thing with Sonning is that the channel divides, with one fork going off to the right under a high footbridge that boats wouldn’t have too much difficulty passing under. The channel straight ahead passed under triple-arched Sonning road bridge, built in 1775 by the way, which was quite low and narrow. Unfortunately, the Environment Agency must have run out of funding here, as they couldn’t afford a simple sign directing river users up the correct channel. I had learnt the hard way earlier in the summer when I thought the main channel went off to the right towards the French Horn Hotel & Restaurant. I was wrong. After several hundred metres, I came to a large turbulent pool surrounded by impenetrable banks of weirs. Luckily I wasn’t in a hurry and could return downstream to take the correct channel under the arched brick bridge. Oh how I loved the thought of paddling downstream. No effort, no wind or rain in my face. Time to pause and rest and still make progress as I drifted indolently with the current, enjoying the wildlife, observing the changing landscape.
I shook these mutinous thoughts aside and continued on upstream under Sonning Bridge. The other thing about Sonning Bridge is that it provides a man-made barrier for the larger boats that wouldn’t fit under its low arches. The woman driver was still at the wheel as the gin palace turned in defeat and headed back downstream. I crawled through and pressed on upstream to Sonning lock. It was a quarter past eleven.
“Hold on to the chains,” the lock keeper ordered.
“That’s OK,” I replied. “I prefer being midstream,” The chains hung down the sides of the lock like the equipment in some medieval torture chamber, dripping with green slime and ominously threatening. I didn’t want to soil my gloves.
“No, I’d rather you held on to the chains please.” Oh, here we go, I thought. Someone who has never sat in a kayak telling me how to do it.
“No, really, I’m OK,” I insisted. “I have done this before you know.” This is my nineteenth lock, including two duck sluices, so I knew I could handle his little lock without holding onto the chains. The lock keeper glowered down at me.
“I’m sorry, but I must insist. It’s the law,” he replied.
The law?! Who makes a law that tells a kayaker to hold on to the chains in a Thames lock? It might be a recommendation or even good advice, but I doubted there was such a law. It sounded more like a little Hitler complex to me and I didn’t like being told what to do by someone who thought pushing buttons was taxing.
“So let’s get this straight. You’re telling me that I would be breaking the law by not holding on to the chains?”
“Yes sir.”
This was a fruitless argument and I realised that I didn’t have time to play it out. What’s more, a few weeks earlier I had heard on the news about a lock keeper who had phoned the police when a canoeist went through his lock without paying some sort of fee. I’m not sure what this ‘fee’ was, but the police had arrived and locked this guy up for 24 hours and confiscated his boat all for the sake of a reported £4. I bet that lock keeper was patting himself on the back for saving humanity from terrorist paddlers.
Anyway, I had made my point, so I laughed in disbelief and paddled to the side where I reluctantly grasped the slippery chain. The lock keeper walked to the top end to open the upstream sluices. As the gates opened, I washed the slime off my hand in the water before exiting. “Have a nice day,” I shouted.
It continued raining lightly as I passed an island and several bends in the river towards the biggest urban conurbation of my journey outside of London. Not that you would know you were passing through Reading. A long row of large glass and steel buildings presented themselves across the river meadow. I recognised the out-of-town business park where I had been employed in the marketing department of a large multi-national for three months earlier in the year. A break in the clouds heralded a brief break in the rain as I glided past those dark satanic mills and on past the giant gasometers next door.
It was then that I came across the ghost lock. Just past the gasometers on my left, the Kennet & Avon canal joined the Thames after a long and gentle meander through the shires. After passing through a final lock and under a railway bridge, it emerged into the Thames between concrete walls amongst a confusion of boats. For some reason that makes no sense to me, this final lock, called Blake’s lock, was counted as one of the forty five locks on the non-tidal Thames. As I hadn’t actually used Teddington lock, I would only be passing through forty four on my trip. Yet when I highlighted them on my Ordnance Survey maps, the number only came to forty three. I went through the named list of locks from the Environment Agency handbook and carefully ticked them off as I traced the course of the river. That’s when I arrived at the ‘Blake’s Anomaly’ in Reading. It wasn’t actually on the Thames and I wouldn’t actually be going under it. So as far as I was concerned, it didn’t exist. It was a ghost lock.
I continued on past a Tesco sign on the riverbank that hinted at a large supermarket behind, past Kings Meadow and finally pulled up to Caversham lock. I went through it with none of the histrionics of the previous lock and wasn’t ordered to hold the chains. I had lunch above the lock on the grass towpath almost under Reading Bridge (built in 1923). A pork pie, baked beans and some Roses chocolate. A couple of kids wearing hoodies walked along the towpath towards me. They can’t have been more than fourteen. I was sitting a few metres away from the Karot in a rare splash of sunshine. On the grass beside the Karot was my bag of food and my day bag containing my Swiss army knife, waterproof hat, polarised sunglasses and my money. The kids paused in their stride as they drew level, looking at me then at the items on the bank a short distance away - gauging whether they could snatch anything and run before I could stop them. I couldn’t believe it. They were fourteen year old kids. I looked at them with what I thought was my best confident, yet threatening, glare. They continued walking past, slowly, whispering to each other and casting conspiratorial glances at the items on the riverbank. I stood up to show them my full majesty of my stature. Hopefully they were seeing a fit-looking bloke who looked as though he would take them on and toss them in the Thames. A short way past my belongings, they paused and tried to look nonchalant. Cheeky little buggers! I thought. Deciding to play it safe, I idled casually back to my bag and took out my hat. It was a wide-rimmed oilskin affair that kept the rain off my glasses. The kids walked on and I began loading up the Karot, feeling not quite as threatening and awesome as I would have liked.
It was three o’clock and I had mentally revised my schedule to get to the campsite at Cleeve lock six miles before Benson. However, I had Mapledurham, Whitchurch and Goring locks to negotiate before that. I estimated four to five hours taking into account waiting at locks for the gates to open. That would be eight o’clock at best. I wasn’t sure that was possible now.
I love that feeling of security I get when I drop into the snug little cockpit and fasten the splash deck securely around me. I feel as if I could go on forever and look for new rivers to conquer. I surged past the island before sweeping under Caversham Bridge with its muted drone of cars above. A grey blanket was sliding across the sky from the west covering the last vestige of blue. The wind was picking up. I knew I was leaving Reading (no big loss) as industrial estates and business parks gave way to the open fields and wooded hills beyond. Mapledurham was four and a half miles away and I hunkered down for a long haul against the current and the wind.
I followed the curving river around to the left where I was joined by the railway line on its way to Didcot where it branched off to Bristol and Birmingham. Trains seemed to thunder past every minute. Goods trains and sleek passenger carriages. It reminded me of the steady departure of flights from Heathrow when I was sitting in the door of my tent on Old Windsor lock that first night. Then, my whisky-induced stupor had romanticised those flying beast, but now the trains were a grating distraction that only added to my annoyance at wind and current. I was headed up a long straight expanse of river with the wind funnelling down it into my face. I clung to the bank scarcely making any progress. On several occasions, my paddle was caught in the reeds that grew close to the bank. I pulled my broad-brimmed oilskin hat onto my head to keep the rain off my glasses.
It seemed to take an age to complete the length of that straight bit. I had developed a continuous rolling stroke to keep me moving forward. This ensured there was no pause in between pulls of the paddle when the stream would stall my forward motion. I kept this up for forty five minutes until I reached a marina off to my left where the river hooked to the right before turning again into Mapledurham lock. I left the rumbling railway line and cut across the stream to the opposite bank. The final stretch up to the tight little lock at Mapledurham was completed in fifteen minutes. It was twenty to five. One hour forty minutes to go four and a half miles. Pathetic. I raged at the wind and sky. “Bastard! Bastard! Bastard!” I shouted with each stroke. I had covered that distance in half the time last month. The sky lowered down on me, casting a bruised brown glow on my world.
I limped through the lock gates, impatient to camp before darkness fell.
It took me an hour to plough on to the lock at Whitchurch. The wind was no longer gusting but a constant force in my face for the remaining two miles of that sweeping leftward arch. Past endless and seemingly unmoving trees lining the river bank. Past flat fields and wretched geese sheltering from the rain. I swear it took me a full ten minutes to pass one particular landmark. I was hugging the left bank, cursing the fact that this side of the river wasn’t lined with sheltering trees, and heading for a small island. It was only a few metres long, populated with no more than a few trees and lined with overhanging nettles. I paddled on rhythmically, my sprained right wrist sending shafts of pain up my arm at each pull. I had taken to counting my strokes. Once I got to a hundred, I would pause, flex my wrist and hang it in the soothing water, and carry on. I had lost interest in my surroundings, save getting past that island. Eventually I drew level with it. Leaning forward, rain dripping off the rim of my hat, I counted another hundred strokes. Then another. Then looking up to see the island was still beside me. It was depressing. I could do better than that.
I eventually passed the island and reached Whitchurch Lock. The Reading suburb of Pangbourne was on the left bank and the Berkshire village of Whitchurch was on the right. So was the lock. I lurched under the bridge that carried the A471 and slid gratefully through the lock gates. It was six o’clock and the light was failing. The lock keeper, wearing a sou’wester and storm jacket, stood high on the lock walls operating the gates in the rain. I asked him if there was any camping on the island. My well-researched itinerary told me there wasn’t, but I thought it was worth the try. Maybe he would take pity on me and invite me into his cottage to dry myself by a nice warm fire. No such luck. He suggested anywhere on the stretch of the river ahead. Not official, mind, he pointed out, but plenty of places to pitch a tent on the left bank, on the Beale Estate, about a mile upstream.
As I paddled slowly out of the gates, I noticed the houses lining the left bank ahead. I would have to continue past those and around the bend in the rain before I could even begin looking for a camp site. On the right, however, were trees broken by little pull-in areas that previous vessels had used for temporary moorings. This looked much more likely. More to the point, much more immediate. I slid slowly along the tree-lined bank looking for a suitable opening. I started relaxing as my paddling became less aggressive and my muscles slowly loosened. Soon I found the small opening I was looking for. I was only a short distance upstream of the lock and opposite the long ridge of hills looming across the river. I swung in under the sheltering trees where the bank shelved at water level to create a low, flat platform ideal for the tent. I pulled in beside it and lifted myself out of the Karot for the first time in three hours. The rain hadn’t penetrated the tree canopy much, so the grass beneath was not yet sodden. I dragged the boat onto the land and up the sloping bank behind, where I lay it in the grass under a tree. I wanted to set up camp quickly in case the rain began falling in earnest. It took me only five minutes to open the tent out on the low shelf directly by the water’s edge and unpack my possessions. I quickly stripped off my damp shorts and shirt and changed into my reassuringly dry cottons.
The third night
It was a miserable night full of noises and rain. I tossed and turned on my plastic Lilo, waking myself with each squeaky turn. I dreamt fitfully of holidays in New Zealand. Paddling to the pub up an estuary near my brother’s bach. Weird dreams in which I raced him back to the house only to find that he had taken a shortcut and was barbecuing fish when I arrived. I couldn’t get out of my kayak, so I spent the evening sitting in the cockpit on the beach eating mussels I scooped out of the sand beside me.
At one point in the night the drizzle had turned to a steady downpour which played noisily on the tent. But it was the din of the trains that intruded most. Every five minutes, it seemed, another would rumble along the line on the opposite bank, the clatter of steel wheels on steel track carrying across the flat surface of the river. No sooner had one faded into a quiet murmur in the distance, than the next would rumble past.
I repeatedly emerged and sunk into periods of sleep where I found my children and Carolyn playing cards on an aeroplane. “Dad can’t play if he’s not here,” Oliver said with authority. Carolyn dealt the cards and the children lined up in the aisle taking turns at playing their hand. Edmund came forward and placed his card on the pile, except it wasn’t a card, it was photo of his bedroom, showing me what posters he had on his walls and where he sat to do his homework. “Come on Dad, you can do it,” he said enigmatically. Next it was Roddy’s turn. Except it was a pre-pubescent Roddy as he was five years ago with curly hair; playful and cute. Everybody loves Roddy. “I love Roddy-dods,” Amelia said. “He’s sooooo cute!” and pinched his cheeks. Roddy said, “Snap!” and picked up the pile of cards. “I win,” he said triumphantly, adding: “Again.” In those days, Roddy took pride in his success at school, in reading, in his knowledge. I had always known that Roddy had a brain the size of a planet. Oliver, too, had gone on to get a masters in rocket science at Manchester university. A ‘Master of Physics with Astrophysics’.
Amelia took Carolyn’s cards and began playing them. “I’ll play for Daddy,” she said and placed a map in front of everyone. “See if you can find where he is,” she said. Carolyn said, “I haven’t seen him for days. He’s hiding somewhere,” and she began to cry. I felt sad. I tried to comfort her but she couldn’t hear me. Oliver said, “He’s always doing that.” I wanted to say that I didn’t, but the rattling roar of the aeroplane’s engines drowned out my protestations. I yearned to be there, to hug and comfort them. To let them know that it wasn’t my fault I was on the river. It was something I had to do. There were things they didn’t know about that forced me to say goodbye at the airport. How could they know that things happen despite all our efforts to prevent them? Things outside my control. I saw them walking down the ramp to board the plane while I was led away by uniformed airport security guards who tied me on to the roof of their car and drove me to the river. I tried phoning Oliver, but he couldn’t hear the ring over the noise of the engines. I rang and rang but he didn’t answer. It was a strange ring tone. It sounded like a series of soft honks. ‘Honk’, ‘honk’, then ‘honk’, ‘honk’ again. Slowly the noise of the engines subsided to a whisper and the ringing grew louder. The children stopped playing cards and scrambled for the phone.
The trains must have stopped because I began hearing strange sounds outside my tent. A sort of soft grunting. Getting slightly irritated at the disturbance, I sat up, fumbled for my torch and quietly unzipped the flap. I waved the torch in the direction of the noise only to see several bemused Canada geese curled up on the bank beside me. They stirred and murmured a few desultory ‘honks’ at the intrusion. I switched the torch off before they got really upset and quietly lay down on the Lilo again.
What a night! It was a jungle out there! I slept OK from there on, knowing I had my own personal guard-geese protecting me.
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