furnivalents
New Member
Am thinking of a trip to Lechlade at some point and was wondering what overnight moorings are like above Abingdon ? Also wondered about pubs and shops above oxford as it all seems very rural.
Lechlade Trip
- Thread starter furnivalents
- Start date
Steve Clayton
Well-Known Member
First question: what is your air draft?
boatone
Well-Known Member
Go to the EA Visit Thames website and download the relevant 'Out and About' leaflets which will give you loads of info about everything in short stretches of the river right up to Lechlade.
http://visitthames.co.uk/text/181/Out_and_About_Guides.html
http://visitthames.co.uk/text/181/Out_and_About_Guides.html
furnivalents
New Member
Osney will be tight , but am confident , Air draft is under 7` .
The guides look very useful, but any recomendations ?
The guides look very useful, but any recomendations ?
miket
Well-Known Member
Trout at Tadpole Bridge
Excellent in June this year and good overnight mooring.
Lechlade meadow is good mooring. Various eateries; Colley's Supper Rooms is excellent and newer Italian looked a nice menu.
Be aware that Diesel no longer available from Lechlade Marina (aka Hobo city. God what a dump now). Only riverside source between Oxford and Lechlade is Oxford Cruisers, also a bit of a dump, but we survived.
Various other very adequate pubs on or near the river and plenty of field moorings if you are eating on board.
Lovely trip but it is quiet and in places weedy, so check your filters.
Excellent in June this year and good overnight mooring.
Lechlade meadow is good mooring. Various eateries; Colley's Supper Rooms is excellent and newer Italian looked a nice menu.
Be aware that Diesel no longer available from Lechlade Marina (aka Hobo city. God what a dump now). Only riverside source between Oxford and Lechlade is Oxford Cruisers, also a bit of a dump, but we survived.
Various other very adequate pubs on or near the river and plenty of field moorings if you are eating on board.
Lovely trip but it is quiet and in places weedy, so check your filters.
Cliveshep
Well-Known Member
Two lumps of steel re-bar and a lump hammer solve most mooring problems up to Lechlade once you get above Osney and leave all the "hooray henry's" behind. Air draft of under 7 feet should, with care, be fine. I've taken my Ocean 30 up at least 5 miles beyond Lechlade, and the dinghy even further, bit like African Queen stuff. We took a sharp saw with us as many fallen trees to negotiate. There seemed much more water up there three years than there was in the 70's.
Our diesel tank took us from Weybridge to Lechlade, and back to Abingdon but checking showed we might not get back to topped up at Abingdon. There's a chandlery that WAS by the old wall downstream of the town where you could pull in for expensive petrol for gennies etc, and the Abingdon boatyard for diesel.
It's really nice up there, rural equating to pretty and quiet in my mind, there are one or two places, there's caravan sites that probably have shops, one in particular is huge and has moorings along the frontage if you're stuck for a shop, but we actually didn't need to stop between the two places - Abingdon/Lechlade.
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Brayman
Well-Known Member
Cliveshep
Well-Known Member
Exploring is ok done on a boat or tender. Exploring ashore means walking, offers SWMBO the opportunity to find shops - naaaah!
First attempt to reach Lechlade after a foray down the tideway first resulted in SWMBO wanting to go ashore at Kingston, she was gone 3 hours and returned with kids and Mother-in-law all laden with ghastly chinese pottery including two of those bloody great chinese urns - we were hard put to move with all the stuff they'd bought. We then reached Oxford by dint of (a)pushing on well after dark with kids (complaining) working locks, and (b) only anchoring at night so they couldn't go ashore.
They (the females) wanted to look around Oxford, so we stopped whereupon they shot off and caught the local bus. Again gone for half a day shopping and we never saw any more of the river after that as we had to turn back for some reason I never fully understood. Mind you, by then there was so much kit aboard in large bags it was a relief as there was precious little room to sleep anyway.
The following year shopping by SWMBO was on the banned list, I and the kids going ashore for essentials and newspapers for herself. We got to Lechlade and she took it very well. She goes shopping all the time anyway so a break was good for her and the budget! That was a good trip for all of us so I reccomend ensuring SWMBO's leave plastic behind and bring a good book on this sort of trip!
