On to Goring and Dinner with Abbie and Dave.

Thursday 31st August 2017 in Goring-on-Thames.
A truly magical morning at sunrise!

We walked to the nearby Waitrose in Abingdon for a "few bits", where we fell into conversation with Mike and Wendy; we were admiring their Morris 8, which was R's first ever car when he was 16.  Their car was very much in its original condition, which Mike described as "oily-rag"! He said that it had recently won a concourse competition as being the most original car there - if not the shiniest!

Walking back to the river, we photographed MM's mooring. Abingdon is a town that is proud of its association with the river and actually encourages visitors by providing excellent free mooring facilities.

As we left Abingdon, we passed the original junction with the Wilts & Berks Canal which once connected the Thames to the Severn. There is a restoration group making slow progress, but they have a mountain to climb to get it restored as much of its original course has since been built on. We wish them well, as it would be marvellous to link the two waterways with such a direct route.

How many times we have travelled across this railway bridge and looked down on the Thames - the last time was two days ago!

When we arrived at Goring-on Thames, all the moorings were taken so we tied up opposite the lock - but our luck was in as one of the moored boats moved and we were able to move into its space and moor up.

We have seen many mirabelle trees along our route and all of them are laden with fruit; this tree was just next to our mooring and the fruit looked like bunches of grapes, there were so many.

Another KG boat, nb "Nattergal", came along looking for a mooring, travelling with another boat. We offered to let them breast up against us, as did our neighbours, so we ended up with four boats moored in two spaces.

R walked into Goring to visit the Capture offices where he used to work. When he returned, he found Guy on look-out duty, waiting for Abbie and Dave. They came down to the boat where we celebrated with a bottle of bubbly.

Afterwards, we went for dinner at the local, excellent, Chinese restaurant. It was great to see Abbie and Dave again and to catch up with them.
Today: 14 miles, 6 locks and 6.1 hours.
Trip: 268 miles, 270 locks and 180.8 hours.