Late start for Godalming

The forecast rain arrived in the early morning which delayed our departure from Guildford until after lunch.  Actually we walked into Guildford and did some shopping before having lunch in the Marks & Spencer cafe.  Jan chose the chicken and leak pie whilst I opted for the pulled pork and apple pie.  Neither meal appeared until I went back to the counter and asked whether they had sent someone to the local abattoirs.  Profuse apologies followed and our pies were delivered a few minutes later.  The lady gave Jan her chicken pie and then set my pork pie in front of me.  I duly gave it a heavy smothering of Australian gravy only to look across at Jan to see her cutting open a pie full of pork.  Yes we had the wrong pies.  Jan wasn’t too pleased with her tomato sauce covered pie. 

After lunch we wandered back to Waiouru via two shopping malls.  Jan managed to add to her lingerie collection and in Robert Dyas we were able to buy two large replacement vacuum bags.  The spare bedding needs to go back into deep storage and our original vacuum bags have developed tears.

It was a short cruise to Millmead Lock which is on the southern edge of the town.

Leaving last night’s mooring

Called out to this fellow that we didn’t want to moor

We were beaten to the lock by a wide beam trip boat.  I stayed on the lock mooring whilst Jan walked up to the lock to assist.

There I was down beside Waiouru minding my own business waiting for Jan to reset the lock which a voice from behind me asked “Do you mind if we join you?”

Whilst I had been standing with my mind in neutral another narrowboat had quietly arrived behind me.  It was nb Whispers with Ian and Karen.  We subsequently discovered they moor Whispers at Frouds Bridge Marina on the Kennet & Avon.

I managed to take a quick snap to the right as we departed the lock behind Whispers.

There were a couple of very tight bends on today’s cruise.  The first had a rather attractive pub on the offside.

The second was even tighter and took some concentration to get Waiouru around.  Despite that I noticed the timber post and vertical roller which would have been used to assist horse drawn boats manoeuvre around the bend.

Whispers was ahead of us at this stage but we overtook Ian and Karen later when a fast moving hire boat going the the opposite direction ran them aground on a bend. 

There are two difficult bridges on this section of the navigation.  Fortunately for us Paul Balmer’s excellent Waterway Routes Maps show both of them and we were well prepared.

Railway Bridge wasn’t much of an obstacle but the same couldn’t be said for Broadford Bridge.

As we approached Broadford Bridge Jan exclaimed “We won’t fit underneath!” whilst I looked at the air gap and said “Plenty of room!”  We were both wrong.  Waiouru fitted under with 1-2” to spare.  There’s no photo of us going underneath as we were both preoccupied.

The next question was “Will Whispers” fit under?”

We made a mental note of the water level on the water gauge just to ensure we’ll be able to check whether the water level has risen for our return in two days time.

I made a real pig’s ear of the winding at Godalming and was forced to us the “girlie button”.  All the moorings appear to be full and we have moored on the offside where it’s rather shallow.  Consequentially we have a significant gap between Waiouru and the bank.

The plan is for tomorrow to be a rest day and take some time to look around Godalming.