Krista and I began our day thinking that Ashton Keynes was about five kilometres from Cricklade. When we caught a taxi from the latter community to pick up our boat in the former, we figured that we would have a pleasant two hour tramp back to Cricklade to get back on schedule. Nine o’clock, ten o’clock… Let’s call it noon. And then, when anticipated arriving in Cricklade an hour early to begin the actual paddling component of our Falling Down that Thames adventure, we would feel pretty good about ourselves.

But we didn’t count on two inconveniences. The first was that the actual distance between Ashton Keynes and Cricklade is slightly greater than the distance travelled by the Apollo 11 astronauts. The second is that in travelling from the Earth to the Moon and back, Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins didn’t have to carry their spacecraft over dozens of pointless padlocked fences. We did.

By the time that we had hauled the canoe on to Cricklade, Krista and I had spoken to dozens of wonderful people. The hikers and dog walkers along our path had clearly never seen a 15-foot canoe being dragged through pastures and farmland before. Questions continued about what charity we were supporting. Krista wisely changed her response about the reason for our journey from “It’s fun,” to “We are trying to inspire others to have great outdoor adventures.”

We put our canoe in the River Thames shortly before 2 pm. It has not been a particularly wet Spring in England, and the river is rather lower than normal. Even though the river is considered to be navigable from Cricklade onward, I had to leap out of the canoe several times to drag it over the shallow bits. But in a surprisingly short time, the face of the river began to change. The water became deep enough to plunge our paddles, and the risk of a puncture in our canoe’s hull diminished.

I sat in the bow of the canoe, and tried to convince myself that I was providing the power. Krista sat in the stern, using her expert strokes to steer us along the straightest line of the serpentine river while avoiding hazards. In this, she was a star. The paddling experience was glorious. We were travelling many times faster than we had while dragging the canoe, although joggers on the Thames Path made us look as though we were mired in treacle. How does one describe the birdlife along the River Thames, if not “fabulous!” Swans as singletons and pairs, some sitting on eggs; one field contained a troupe of fifty-six swans. Mallards soon became common place, and on three occasions we saw troupes of ducklings no more than three days old. Great Blue Herons, Collared Flycatchers, Little Egrets, Chaffinches… And, for just a second, we spied two emerald darts – Common Kingfishers.

At St. John Lock, the first of 44 through which we would pass, we met Charlie and Karen who were returning to Lechlade after a day on their powerboat. They kindly showed us how to use the lock to move downstream after they had passed upstream. This was necessary because the lockkeeper had finished his workday. A couple of kilometres further along we felt sufficiently prepared to tackle the second lock ourselves. Neither of us was killed in the attempt.

Soon we had to admit that our long tramp with the canoe attached to the trailer had set us so far back that we couldn’t possible attain our goal of Tadpole Bridge before dark. We were going to have to stop paddling about ten kilometres short. We drew up to the village of Kelmscott. The community grew a little in size a few years ago when it engulfed the village of Little Faringdon, but it still isn’t a huge place. Let’s call it 200 residents. We pulled the canoe up on shore, chained it to a fence, and prayed that the citizens are Kelmscott were law-abiding. We called for a taxi to take us to our hotel at Tadpole Bridge. We arrived tired, achy, a bit dirty and bashed-up, but very proud to have overcome challenges.

If we can add ten kilometres to tomorrow’s paddle, we should be back on schedule, arriving in Oxford before sunset.

- Glen