16th July '15

Couldn't write anything yesterday, since there was no signal where we were moored!
We left Crofton early and as we were getting underway, a CRT chap comes along and says that their sign is in the wrong place! I suggest they move it then! But it was nice having a good mooring.
Most of the locks seemed to be against us, as they have to be left empty. Those that didn't have a sign saying leave empty, leaked so much that they'd emptied themselves. It was very quiet, hardly any boats moving at all, although we were lucky enough to meet a opulent coming out of locks, which was nice.
Out plan had been to get to Hungerford, but we saw some vacant pilings  (yes....pillings!)
Today, We left our nice mooring and were joined by Steve who was moving their boat while his wife was at work ( with her knowledge...not just to upset her!).
He completely restored our faith in single handed boaters. He took turns at opening and shutting locks, and was lovely to have around. He was only going a few locks so we left him at Hungerford Marsh Lock, which is the quirky one with a swing bridge in the middle of it!
It became busy at this point with two wide beams and one narrow all coming our way, so we had help  which was nice.
Because we now didn't need to moor at Hungerford, there were moorings in all parts! Before the lock, on the wharf and opposite. We'd decided however that if we moored at Kintbury it would be a short run into Newbury. So we stopped and filled up with water at the wharf and managed to join Eezyduzit. Neil and Dawn had only bought her less than a week before and were taking her up to Hertfordshire, where they live.
We went down through several locks together and then they went on at Kintbury while we hoped to moor. No such luck...a few attempts but we just couldn't get close enough so we went on through and found them still above the lock at a water point! Result!
We continued on our way, passing the Horse drawn boat on the way. They were all eating scones with jam and cream, on board ...and I'm on a fast day. Just not fair.
I'd marked on our map, that there were some short moorings at the end of a straight and sure enough we could see a boat moored on them, now we felt that Newbury was our only hope, but....lo and behold, there was room for us to get in ,although it meant that we had to get off at the back, that was a small price to pay for a decent mooring. Hooray.
Neil and Dawn were heading into Newbury as they were low on supplies and wanted a pub meal. Just hope they were lucky.