Wait for a bridge yesterday and now a long wait at the boatyard.

Talk about a noisy mooring yesterday!! The trains (freight, local and cross country) thundered past with horrible regularity. And the boat actually shook and juddered as the freight came past!!!Wouldn't mind so much if they kept their tooting to themselves but every train sounded the horn. It wasn't until this morning that I realised why. A public footpath rail crossing was by the swing bridge with no barriers, only a stop look and listen sign so a warning had to be given. Think I might let them off.

How close to the mooring???

 Worrying that we wouldn get a mooring in Newbury if we left it to let to leave, we set off just before 7am. The sun was so low that anyone heading East would have struggled to see. Took this photo of Dave leaving Old Heales lock

 Another turf sided lock to do, Monkey Marsh, and this one was huge in comparison to Garston.

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At Thatcham I wanted to stop to go to the Nature reserve. Hadn't banked on the amount of reeds and nettles on either side. Thought as we had managed to get in yesterday at Woolhampton amongst the foilage, this would be similar. I was so disappointed and annoyed with C&RT that moorings hadn't been made available. But there again if they had decent moorings no doubt the continues moorers would have utilised them first.

Widmead lock coming up and nature reserve is off to the right. No chance of mooring here though!.

Another sparkly photo

Gets a bit narrow in places

Strange angle for this boat to be

 Arriving at Newbury we met several boats coming down the locks. This was a welcome sight as moorings hopefully would be available. First we decided to get diesel at Newbury Marina and chandlers. At 86p self declare it wasn't to bad. But we did have a long wait. We were number 3 and 4 in the queue and boats 1 & 2 wanted water and gas as well. In the end we waited one hour and 10 minutes before we could push across. Worrying that any mooring available would be taken I walked up to the next lock to have a sus it out There was a space on the 24 hour mooring where two boats could get in but of course I hadn't banked on the delay. So after we had filled with deisel we found a mooring opposite the marina instead. Not brilliant because we are in direct sunlight and it's bl**dy hot!!! Tonight may well be very uncomfortable.

Two boats on the water and diesel point, one boat leaving and then it was our turn.

And on route as well as by yesterdays mooring.