Up and away by
9am. We stopped at Rushey Lock to empty
the cassettes and dispose of the rubbish only the bin was locked! We debated about just dumping the rubbish but
thought better of it. Rushey Lock was on
self service and it was a nice easy descent.
This was our
sunset last night, I haven’t seen one like this for a long time.
The Lock Keeper
was on at Shifford again. I asked him
why the rubbish bin was locked at Rushey and he said that it is something to do
with access. The lorry can’t get down or
something. At least it wasn’t Covid!
Here is a bit
of useless information about Shifford!
In the year 890AD, King Alfred (he of the cakes) is said to have held
one of his parliaments in Shifford. In early times, Shifford was a ‘sheep
ford’.
Between
Shifford and Northmoor Locks we came across three boats that were Venetian
Rowing boats. The boats were from the
City Barge Boat Club in Oxford and they are rowed similarly to gondolas in
Venice, standing up and facing forward.
It looked really hard work!
Northmoor Lock had a Lockie working and we shared the lock with a hire boat. The Lockie suddenly realised that the bow rope on the hire boat was tied, he soon sorted that out. He went to check to stern and I heard him say, “can you hold the rope” and the answer was “I’ve got my foot on it as it is hard to hold a rope and my phone at the same time”!!
This photo is from Where Thames Still Waters Glide |
I was subsequently told it was the last time it 'sailed', which was not surprising. As you can see from this scanned print, my attached photo was obviously taken with the ferryman using a rope to pull the ferry across to our landing.
3 locks
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