Date - 17 07 09 Day - Friday Start - Iffley Lock End - Beale Park Well we did eat in The Isis Farmhouse and Boathouse and it is still a pub. I think its the first place that I have ever visited where the vegetarian menu is as large as the carnivores (nearly said normal oops) There was lentils with fetter cheese on toast or meat balls in tomato sauce with brown rice. See one each. They also had wheat free cake and rhubarb crumble on offer. The sell beer drawn from the keg set up on the bar, there was only one on last night as the other two were still settling. They also had several ciders on as well , all are from local breweries and the beer was only £3 a pint, not bad for that part of the world. There is no road access, it was Thursday night, it was raining and the place was busy, we will call in on the way back and see what they sell during the day. Since we were here last the number of mooring rings has more than doubled with moorings all the way from the front of the pub to the skiff rollers and there were only a couple of us moored here. This morning as I was getting ready to set off a 2 person rowing scull was sitting almost beside us waiting to set off, what struck me as unusual was that the chap in the front had a rear view mirror attached to his head band so he could see if there was anything in front while he was belting along backwards. I had a word with him about it and he said he had bought it about 20 years ago but don't think its allowable for racing. We set off at 9,30 just behind a narrowboat that had just passed us, unfortunately we had to wait at the lock for a Salters Steamer who was just behind us and who had priority over private craft. We followed the other narrowboat to the next lock after which it started to thunder, rain, hail etc. We stopped to fill with water at Abingdon lock after doing the full 4 miles in none stop torrential rain. The weather continued like this for most of the day with very short spells of sun between the rain. We decided that enough was enough and at 5 30 we moored for the night at Beale Park, but this was not before we had passed the regatta course being set out just above Goring lock ready for tomorrow.
You will find our latest position at http://tinyurl.com/Harnser-s-route You will find our latest position at http://tinyurl.com/Harnser-s-route -- Brian
