Tom Price
N/A
Arundel is an interesting town but stopping is not on the agenda and we continue upstream, spurning self-drive motorboats from the Riverside Boatyard to push on in DIY mode. Looking back, with a sigh of relief after clearing under Arundel Old Bridge, the view is unique in combining past with present on the river.
This looks promising – the Black Rabbit pub. But weedy steps are hardly inviting, the crude scaffolding ‘moorings’ less so, and when rallying here I’ve just anchored and rowed ashore.
Here is the first of two footbridges enabling farmers to access land on the other side, a result of competing railway engineers cutting across what is the now neglected Burpham Loop.
And this is the second bridge. Looks new – does the Environmental Agency actually have money to spend? Then bump! Bump! Lifted up and over something solid just before the bridge. TG for a long keel!
We’re now cutting through the chalk escarpment of the South Downs
Thomas Hardy was right: “Far from the madding crowd” - and far from the madding Solent!
The flag is on a telescopic flagstaff adjusted to a few inches more than our air draft.
Here’s the next obstacle, Houghton Bridge, and a few anxious moments as the 3-knot current sweeps us underneath.
Next is the Riverside caravan park, seen from upstream . The proprietor is very welcoming, the landlord of the Bridge Inn too if you stop; we will have to on the way back but the berths aren’t robust enough and we always anchor midstream.
On we go through flat wetlands, miles from anywhere, then around the corner . . .
Oops! Go back a few metres, drop the hook and wait for more water, enjoying a beer or two as the sun goes down.
This looks promising – the Black Rabbit pub. But weedy steps are hardly inviting, the crude scaffolding ‘moorings’ less so, and when rallying here I’ve just anchored and rowed ashore.
Here is the first of two footbridges enabling farmers to access land on the other side, a result of competing railway engineers cutting across what is the now neglected Burpham Loop.
And this is the second bridge. Looks new – does the Environmental Agency actually have money to spend? Then bump! Bump! Lifted up and over something solid just before the bridge. TG for a long keel!
We’re now cutting through the chalk escarpment of the South Downs
Thomas Hardy was right: “Far from the madding crowd” - and far from the madding Solent!
The flag is on a telescopic flagstaff adjusted to a few inches more than our air draft.
Here’s the next obstacle, Houghton Bridge, and a few anxious moments as the 3-knot current sweeps us underneath.
Next is the Riverside caravan park, seen from upstream . The proprietor is very welcoming, the landlord of the Bridge Inn too if you stop; we will have to on the way back but the berths aren’t robust enough and we always anchor midstream.
On we go through flat wetlands, miles from anywhere, then around the corner . . .
Oops! Go back a few metres, drop the hook and wait for more water, enjoying a beer or two as the sun goes down.
