Godalming to Guildford

Wed 14^th July  Godalming to Guns Mouth

We decided to move before the kayak and paddleboard mayhem started. As we were preparing to leave, a boat called Lucy came down looking for a mooring, so we said they could have ours. We moved to the sanitary station, where Hazel went to Sainsbury’s, while James disposed of rubbish and emptied two cassettes. As is often the case here, the elsan facility was blocked. The waste pipe must either be damaged, or too small, or too kinked.

Godalming Sanitary Station

Heading upstream in pleasant weather, our first lock was Catteshall. We have not shared any locks on the Wey yet. There are not many boats around. Thankfully, this time, there were no day boats having instruction.

Catteshall Lock

After Unstead Lock, we moored up on the water meadows just before Guns Mouth. It was about as far away from the traffic as we could manage.

We had a Canal Ministries Zoom in the evening.

Moored on the meadows at Broadmead

Sunset over Broadmead Meadow

2 locks, 2 miles. Dep 0945, arr 1100.

Thu 15^th July  Guns Mouth to Guildford Meadows

The river level dropped a little in the night, and James was to be seen at 4am in his dressing gown, slackening the mooring lines, and pushing the boat further out.

It was sunny and breezy this morning. We took the flowers off the roof as Broadford Bridge was in sight downstream, and again we were pleased we had done so, as the headroom was very tight.

Broadford Bridge

Railway Bridge at Shalford

Riff Raff Weir

We only had one lock today, and that was St Catherine’s Lock, which James had to set. There are lovely moorings here, except for the noisy trains which rush past close by.

In several places on the Wey, there are vertical rollers, originally for the ropes on horse-drawn barges. The navigation was opened in 1653, long before the invention of steam, diesel or petrol engines. Some of the corners must have been very tricky to negotiate.

Roller

Footbridge for the Pilgrim’s Way

We chose a mooring at the far end of the meadows, as close to the town as we could get. We had a tree to tie to which was between the river and the path, so no-one would trip over our rope.

Tied to a handy tree.

Golden Butterfly, a lovely wooden boat

Hazel went into Guildford for some shopping. James stayed on board to catch up with the blog. 

After we both had a snooze later, Greg rang to say that the plans for a family get together on Saturday would have to change as he has been pinged by the NHS Covid app, and has been told to self-isolate. He set up a WhatsApp group for all those concerned, and the consensus was to postpone the event for a week until Saturday 24^th, by which time he will have finished his sentence. We have a Wey Licence until 28^th, so we can easily adjust our plans.

Oliver rang later, offering to collect us and take us to Leatherhead. He hadn’t seen the WhatsApp messages. Hopefully, he will be able to collect us next week instead, by which time we will be in Weybridge.

Just after he rang off, James was setting up our life group Zoom connection, when a lady knocked on the boat. Hazel went to meet her, and we ended up being invited for coffee on their boat tomorrow.

Life Group Zoom followed.

1 lock, 1 mile. Dep 0945, arr 1035

Fri 16^th July  Guildford Meadows

A lovely sunny day with a cooling breeze. Woken up by rowers at 6.15am.

Water art

We had been invited for coffee aboard a boat called Many Meetings, which we had noticed as we passed through earlier. The boat hull was built by Alexander Boatbuilders of Stourport, the same as ours. We had a lovely chat with Robin and Marion, known by some jovially as the Hoods. They are friends with Bob and Janet Wayment of BCF.  It seems that they will be going up the Thames for a month, around the same time as we will, so no doubt we will share other times together.

Marion and Robin

We did little today, sitting in the shade of a willow tree. James went for a walk later, up to the Pilgrims Way and back. There was a lot of ragwort around, but the only cinnabar caterpillars we have seen were at Dapdune Wharf, when James did not have his camera handy. He crossed the river by the footbridge to investigate the curious stone structure at the river end of Ferry Lane. Apparently, it marks a spring, and the Victorians built a little grotto there.

Ragwort

Pilgrims Way footbridge

The mini grotto marking the spring

Water meadows and houses on a hill

No boating today

Sat 17^th July  Guildford Meadows to Dapdune Wharf

Still sunny this morning. A lot of rowers rushed past early again, followed by a few kayaks, and the inevitable paddle boarders, an occupation which has really caught on in the last year or two.

Our Guildford Meadows mooring

Passing the Guildford Rowing Club

After a leisurely start, we passed the rowing club, and approached Millmead Lock, where a hire boat was on the lock bollards facing out. It turned out they had dropped a windlass in the water. They were trying to get it out with boat hooks. We lent them our Sea Searcher magnet, but they still couldn’t find it. We also lent them our windlass and they reset the lock for us, as we couldn’t get on the lock bollards.

Once in the lock, James tried with the magnet just by the ground paddle, and found the windlass straight away. The crew were surprised and very grateful.

As we left the lock, there were four boats waiting to come up. James had to step across the first one to get back on board.

We had a gentle cruise downstream to Dapdune. Here, another boat was on the low-level moorings, so we faced upstream, and tied onto the high wall, and used the water hose, emptied a cassette, and dumped the rubbish.  By the time we had done that, the other boat left, so we reversed back and took their place.

We checked in for a mooring, and went to consume an ice-cream in the shade.

James went to look at the ragwort where he had seen cinnabar caterpillars last week. There was no evidence of them this week, so they must have pupated already.

In the National Trust bookshop, we found an album by Slim Dusty, called “Looking forward, looking back”. We had been in Tamworth, Australia in 2000/1 when he had received his golden guitar country music award for this album and this song.

It was too hot to go into Guildford, so we chilled on the boat.  Except it was too hot to chill literally.

Quite noisy at times with youngsters having fun on kayaks and paddle boards.

Moored at Dapdune (third boat back)

1 mile, 1 lock. Dep 1015, arr 1105.

Next: We take a train tomorrow to Weybridge for a farewell lunch for some friends who are leaving for Egypt. Then a slow leisurely cruise downstream towards the Thames.