A Visit form Erika, Dan, Lucas and Rory.

 Saturday 26th June 2021 in Guildford.

After an early start under rather overcast skies, the day brightened up as we reached Triggs Lock.

It soon turned into a lovely day as we made our way south towards Guildford.

Bowers Lock is in a truly picturesque setting surrounded by mature trees. The approach to the lock is a tight left turn across a strong river current that tends to push you back, so you have to aim to go past the lock as you turn and then let the current carry you back to slide into the lock. Behind the trees in the distance is Sutton Place, once the home of J. Paul Getty but now owned by a Russian oligarch billionaire and therefore sadly not accessible to the public.

On our way, we stopped at Dapdune Wharf, home to the Navigation Office of the National Trust, in order to purchase a licence for the Wey Navigation for the next three weeks. However, we found out that the office only opens on Tuesday and Thursday - so there was nobody that we could buy a licence from! We also found that you cannot buy a licence on-line, the only way to get a licence was to apply by post - so we duly filled out the forms and sent a cheque by mail. Good old NT, chaotic as ever!

We moored under the willow trees next to the White House Pub in Guildford, one of our regular spots.

M fell into conversation with a young man on the towpath, and he recommended a new coffee shop in the High Street. So, off we went to find it.

And what a find it was! The "Ceylon House of Coffee", or CHOC for short, was excellent and produced a cappuccino that R scored as a very rare 9.5 out of 10. We think there's a fighting chance we will become regulars over the next couple of weeks!

Erika and Dan arrived early afternoon with Lucas and Rory for a day trip. Erika and Dan left the boys with us and took their car back to Shalford while we went through Millmead Lock. Rory elected to stay on MM through the lock and looked a very lone and tiny figure on his own as we filled the lock.

Erika and Dan walked back from Shalford to meet us, the intention was that we would stop to pick them up along the way. R tried but MM ran firmly aground well away from the bank. It took him a while, and the long pole, to get MM free - so we all carried on to St. Catherine's Lock, where Erika and Dan were able to get back on board.

For some reason, Rory took a shine to one of our eggs and he carried it lovingly for the rest of the afternoon and even took it home!

At Shalford, there is a very low bridge; MM can just squeeze through with about six inches to spare, but everyone has to duck down to miss the bridge.

We turned at Gun's Mouth and headed back through St. Catherine's Lock, where the boys opened the lock gates on their own. A great effort as they are very heavy gates - they are both now nicknamed "Mini-Hercules"!

They then left to walk back to their car at Shalford. Looks like they had a great time!

We went back to the water meadows outside Guildford where we moored up. However, tonight is Saturday and "Randy & the Rockets" are back doing on-line gigs every Saturday during the Lockdown extension but, tragedy, there was no internet signal! R went off and found that there was a signal a few hundred yards further on, so he un-moored MM, moved and re-moored.

The evening was spent happily listening to "Randy & the Rockets" on YouTube.

Today: 10 miles, 6 locks and 5.1 hours.

Trip: 241 miles, 120 locks and 107.5 hours.