Time to move on. We have had a
great time in London and been to places we had heard of but never been to. I’ve ticked off a few things on my bucket
list but one of the things we didn’t or couldn’t do was to go into Greenwich
Maritime Museum (flippin dog!). One of
Richard’s ancestors was John Harrison (1693 - 1776) who was a self-educated
English carpenter and clockmaker. He invented the marine chronometer and, I
have discovered, a famous man. We hope
to do some more research on him this winter.
The Museum has a special exhibition on at present and has five of
Harrison's celebrated timekeepers on show.
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| That's one way of cleaning windows! |
We made a quick visit to the local Tesco Express to stock up, had lunch
and then prepared for our departure from Limehouse. Limehouse Lock is quite disturbing as they
open the gate to let the water out and from the bow I could see the river a
couple of feet below us! Our exit from
the lock was a bit hairy! It was quite
rough and as I went to zip up the cratch cover the zip end came undone and I
had to struggle to do it up with the boat rearing up and down!! I couldn’t do it and had to go and get my
glasses – that helped and I finally got it done up. I have to admit I did feel a bit queasy after
that.
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| Leaving Limehouse |
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| Tower of London |
We are getting a bit blasé about traversing the Thames now – three
times in one season is pretty good going.
It was probably the roughest journey we have had but the easiest with
river traffic. We passed the cruise
ship, Seabourn Legend, tied up against HMS Belfast and the IBM building at
Southbank where I have worked a couple of times.
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| Seabourn Legend |
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| IBM South Bank |
The lifeboat moved away from the RNLI station just as we went passed so
I was able to get a good look at it.
Just beside the London Eye is a ride which I had missed on our way down
– I’m not sure if it’s my cup of tea.
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| RNLI Boat |
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| New scary ride |
The great bronze statue of Boudica with her daughters in her war
chariot was looking just as magnificient as ever by Westminster. It was commissioned by Prince Albert and
executed by Thomas Thornycroft and was completed in 1905. Big Ben struck 1.30 as we passed by :-)
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| Boudica |
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| Big Ben at 1.30pm |
The hippo was still there!
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| Hippo |
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| Fire Boat |
Now I have a big admission to make here – I went down below at this
stage and played around on the laptop.
Richard said he didn’t need me to keep an eye out and, to be honest,
it’s not the most scintillating part of the river.
We got to Teddington about 4pm – probably just before high tide – and
then cruised on up to Kingston. We
moored up against a low concrete mooring pontoon but we were soon banging
around as the river level had gone up - the tide must have come up over the
weir at Teddington!! It didn’t take long
before it settled back down again – we had been warned that it was going to be
a high spring tide!
23.04 miles
2 locks
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