Vicky and Graham's River Thames Row

Sunday morning 8th May, 6:30am. Last day of our challenge. Leaving Chiswick Pier just after 8am, expect to arrive at the Greenwich Yacht Club at about 12:30. Rowing 19 miles, with a strong outgoing tide, right through central London. It’s our most challenging and exciting day. Two friends, who are familiar with the London Thames, had tried to dissuade us from doing it, saying it’s too dangerous for such a small boat, but plenty of other people have done it. The main problems are rough water created by the wash of passing big/fast boats and negotiating the many bridges. A number of these are set quite close together, several with piers and stuff such as the London Eye, projecting some way out from the river bank on the far side of the bridge. Travelling downstream, we have to keep to the starboard or right hand side of the river. We have to quickly decide which arch of each bridge we will go through, with the current pushing us, avoiding other boats and avoiding getting swept on to the ...

Almost there, just one final day to complete our challenge! We stayed in the Weir Hotel, located on the river bank, in Walton on Thames, and arranged for a packed lunch to be ready at 7am, when we absolutely planned to leave, in time to catch the tide when we reached Teddington lock. In the morning no signs of life in the hotel and the stairway, which is locked at night, still locked. We left via the fire escape (pointed out when we checked in). We rowed to the first lock, a few hundred yards away, to see a ‘Lock closed’ notice. Attached to the control panel, which has no power, was a hand written notice “back at 9”. I thought of the possibility of asking some passing runners if they could help us carry the boat around the lock, then noticed that this lock had a ‘Portage’ to move canoes round the lock.  A canoeist arrived and offered to help us drag our boat down the rollers, which worked.   Passing Hampton Court palace We then had to row quite hard to get to the Teddington lo...

Day 8.  Windsor to Walton on Thames, 18 miles and 6 locks.  Its been spectacular weather today. Wonderfully sunny with a cool breeze this morning, warm and cloudy this afternoon. However we have had a long day. Yesterday the Eton Excelsior Rowing Club were most helpful when we were struggling to find a safe place to leave the boat, however it was 2.5 miles upstream of where we were staying. So this morning we had to add 2.5 miles onto our days total row.  We managed to catch up, covering 18 miles overall, but it was a very long and hard day of rowing. We started at 9.30am, and finished at 6.30pm, with only two 30 minute breaks (other than locks).  We are now staying at The Weir pub in Walton-on-Thames.    We rowed past Windsor Castle, under the M25 and under the M3. Inside the M25 the riverside has got noticeably more developed and urban.  The huge houses on the river banks in huge perfectly manicured gardens (the size of a field) have changed into the...

 Day 7.  We have arrived in Windsor, after 5 locks and 12 miles. Today we rowed through Marlow and stopped for lunch in Maidenhead.  Again, we have kindly been offered safe overnight mooring thanks to a friendly rowing club. This time the Eton Excelsior Rowing Club.  Friends met us at the rowing club with snacks galore, took us to our accommodation and joined us for a walk to Windsor Castle   The river has got much busier with big motor boats and rowing boats.  Dads mirrors are working a treat, which is helpful as my neck is incredibly sore. After the first couple of blogs, I decided to stop talking about he pain as no one wants to hear about that, but its still there and now affecting different parts of the body. Both of us have sore lower backs and blistered hands (despite wearing gloves).  Dad is suffering with sore hips and my shoulders and neck are affecting me.  It’s hardly surprising as we are rowing for between 5 to 6 hours a day. Dad star...

Day 6 - 16 miles and 6 locks.  Good progress today but it was a long and quite hard day. Aches and pains, hips and lower back, were around most of the time. We were on the water from 10am, when we left Reading Rowing Club until we arrived at our accommodation (Bisham Abbey National Sports Centre, lots of fit athletic people here) at 6:30pm, except for a 1 hour lunch stop at a riverside park in Henley.  Henley was getting ready for the Henley Regatta, with marquees going up everywhere and the river being marked out for racing.  Lots of other (proper) rowing boats on the river, all overtaking us. We had our most significant rain today. Largely sunny in the morning, then several showers followed by a period of steady rain in the afternoon.  Most of the locks today didn’t have lock keepers so, with surprisingly few boats on the river, we had to work several of them ourselves.  Eventually, everything in the boat that was not in a dry bag, plus both of us, became pret...

Having just finished day 5 and rowed a total of 69 miles, we are now almost half way through our row.  The river is getting wider and outside towns it’s still as remote as ever. For a while we joined a lovely lady called Jo who is kayaking the length of the navigable river to raise money for Parkinson’s UK, who took the attached photos of us rowing. In Pangborne we watched the local lads jumping into the river from the road bridge.  Tonight, we are now staying at the Premier Inn in Reading, with the boat moored at the Reading Rowing Club (thanks to the lovely people there).  Dad is now 77 but is probably fitter and stronger than many people in their 40’s. However I don’t really think of him as elderly.  We were both exhausted and had aching backs when we checked into the hotel.  However Dad only sat still for 20 minutes before he set off to go to Wickes to get some wood to strengthen the upright post that the panoramic mirrors are mounted on (it wobbles around q...