Triple visa challenge; one night in an Athens jail; Japie-friendly destinations and a wander down Memory Lane; a toast to travel in 2020
Arriving in my home town of Durban a couple of months ago was not the time to kick back and relax, as Roy sternly reminded me. I had to get cracking on the three visas I required for our 2020 travels: Australia, France and the UK.
The Morrises and The Ivy; friends, family and the three-day Fish Rule; England’s Rose Freehouse; The Real Ship Inn at Sandgate; Eurotunnel to Calais; Beaune again
Mr Piper picks a peck of pretty Pipers; living it up at the Leander; beer with buddies at the Boater’s Bar
It just so happened that Roy and I found ourselves in the south of England on the weekend of the annual Piper Boats get-together at Henley-on-Thames.
Sometimes, we leave Karanja in her home port of Moissac and go off for a while. From what we got up to in August, here’s a trio of sister-centric outings, in the UK and in France.
While visiting my sister Dale and her family in Kent, England, she and I did a couple of day trips – first to Shoreham village and The Mount Vineyard, and then to Herne Bay. Then Roy and I went back to the Dordogne to meet up with his younger sisters Lyndsay and Cheryll.
#1 Shoreham (Kent)
You have to specify Shoreham (Kent) because there’s another one – Shoreham-by-Sea in West Sussex.
I’d been itching to cruise the Canal de Montech, and it was great! This pretty waterway runs from Montech to the gracious city of Montauban, linking the Canal de Garonne with the Tarn River. It’s just 11km long and manages to squeeze 11 locks into that distance.
Here’s where it all becomes serious: our cross-Channel pilot, David Piper (the founder of Piper Boats), met us at Sunbury Lock, three locks downriver from Penton Hook.
He was jumping ship from another Piper boat, Otium, coming upstream from Richmond. Another couple of locks took us to the long layby for Teddington Lock, where the Thames becomes tidal, and we moored for the night.
On our first day out from T&K Marina, passing through Sonning, Shiplake, Marsh, Hambleden, Hurley, Temple and Marlow locks, we were extremely pleased to find a mooring near Cookham Bridge, exactly where we enjoyed spending several days last summer.
As an expat you get used to saying goodbye to friends, knowing it’s not goodbye but au revoir. Still, as we head off downriver tomorrow for London, the English Channel and Calais, who knows when we’ll see our marina friends again?
And where will our supply of gammon and lamb roasts come from when we’re no longer here to win them at the Boaters Bar’s weekly meat raffle?
Only a few days to go before Roy and I say goodbye to the Thames & Kennet Marina and head downriver on our Dutch barge Karanja – all the way downriver to London – before embarking on the Channel crossing to Calais.
We’ve been through Thames locks Sonning, Shiplake, Marsh, Hambleden, Hurley, Temple, Marlow and Cookham. Now we’ll spend a few leisurely days going through Boulters, Bray, Boveny, Romney, Old Windsor, Bell Weir, Penton Hook, Chertsey, Shepperton, Sunbury and Molesey – before picking up our experienced pilot, David Piper, at Teddington. That’s where the non-tidal Thames becomes tidal and a tad less tame.
How would you fancy owning a 135-year-old houseboat, as SHEILA FINNEY has done for nearly the past two decades? Lovely old Tedders being permanently moored just three or four berths down from our Dutch barge Karanja at the Thames & Kennet Marina, she and her husband Doug kindly invited me over for tea and a chat.
