Well it’s been a long time coming, but almost 3 years since swapping our Sea Otter narrowboat T42 for Prime Thyme, it looks like we are finally going to step aboard. As usual in the “new” world of ours there are still a few curved balls in play. Namely the lack of water in the UK. This has led to restrictions on the canal locks to save water, and has unfortunately led to Lazy Otter being unable to join us this year. However Rico and Lorraine plan to join us along our trip using their camper trailer.

So our current plan is to have a 3 day shakedown cruise to Guildford on the River Wey, then use our existing trailing option to go Lechlade at the head of the navigable Thames and slowly sample the pubs, I mean cruise, back to Pyrford Marina. We have done part of this before, but I was recovering from an abscess under a tooth, so it will be good to do this at leisure. There are lots of attractive towns and scenery along the way, and I’ll have some photographic gear to capture it

But first we have to get it of the Marina. Here is an aerial view, a bit of reversing first, always interesting with a squared off stern, then out on the “cut” (slang for canal), past the pub, bound to be lots of gongoozlers (people watching for crashes!) then up to Walsham Gates for our first night.

Then if all goes well, upstream to Guildford to provision the boat. We’ll have 2 days to get back and prep the boat for trailing to Lechlade. Tony Tugboats, great name ! will be doing this as Norm from Central Boat Transport has sadly stopped due to health reasons.

The upper Thames is very rural, going thru towns like Oxford, Wallingford, Abingdon and Windsor. Lots to see and do, hopefully we can get on the Oxford canal for a short cruise as well, so much to look forward to! It will feel strange being on a new boat, we had some great times on T42.