Going round the bends.

There were no bad heads this morning and to complete his impersonation of an angel by bringing the Sunday paper to us. He was there to wave us off as we left too. I paid with a couple of jars of rhubarb and ginger jam. It was great to see you again Chris and we had a great night. Hope to see you again soon.

Newbridge is anything but as it is from the 13th Century. There were similar bridges on the Avon. I expect the pointed arches are there as they hadn't perfected the art of building rounded arches and maintaining the strength yet. There is Chris on the bridge!

Trying to wave and not hit the sides we left him in our wake.

On the other side of the bridge to the 'Rose Revived' is the 'Maybush' which seems to have major improvement works there. This floating hot tub was moored near to the car park. I wonder how it tows?

First lock of the day was Shifford Lock that wasn't opened until 1897. At the same time they cut off a large loop in the river. Shifford Lock means the sheep ford, as sheep could cross here. I can understand people from abroad getting overwhelmed by the history everywhere in England as the little village of Shifford actually was the site of a Parfliament held by Alfred the Great in 890! In the cut off loop is Duxford, and yes you have guessed it, it was shallow enough for ducks to cross. (Why didn't they swim though!!??)

Passing down the new cut dug when they built the lock. It goes to Chimney! We shared the lock with the cruiser.

There are many pill boxes from WWII on this stretch as it was a defensive line in case of invasion, similar to the line of the Kennet and Avon canal.

the river gets quite narrow in places and after Rushey Lock there are some viciously sharp bends that you need to keep your concentration. It would be interesting a 72' boat meeting another on the bends. We met a couple of narrow boats at a corner but managed to avoid both,

Tadpole Bridge has the shallow arch that shows that it was built at a later date to the Newbridge. In fact it was put up in 1802 with the single arch.

All the locks seem to have nice keeper's cottages. The gardens are also beautifully kept. This one is not the best but marks the 300th lock of this campaign. Out of four locks today we were self service with two and keepers with the others.

Interesting to see there are no old men or anybody else on Old Man's Bridge.

Radcot Lock was taken from us by one of these camping boats. They told us that they had had it a day, so I assume that it was hired from Lechlade. They said that they were going all the way to Richmond in nine days.

The original Radcot Bridge was built around 1200 with a pointed arch. However it was largely destroyed during a battle between Henry Bollingbroke and Richard II in 1387. It was rebuilt in 1393 but badly damaged again during the Wars of the Roses when it was built with the rounded arch.

As we approached our destination of Kelmscott it started to rain lightly. It made finding a mooring at the bank moorings there a little more difficult but we were soon there and in the dry. We are hoping that the rain stops or slows so that we can go and have a walk up to the village and Manor, and pub so fingers crossed.