I am Linda and along with my husband Richard and our dog Oreo we enjoy our summers on the UK's canal system

Friday 12 September 2014

Kingston (River Thames) – Thursday 11th September

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.
  
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.
 
Leaving Limehouse
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.

Seabourn Legend
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.

RNLI Boat
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 :-)

Boudica
Big Ben at 1.30pm
 The hippo was still there!

Hippo
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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