How many locks? 44, that's 11 a day..

So we want to go down the non-tidal part of the Thames, starting at Cricklade, all the way down to Teddington Lock. As such not a big challenge, just hard graft. A quick look at a map of the locks reveals, that the challenge of this trip won't just be the distance, but also the 44 locks, we will have to negotiate. If we do it in 4 days, that would mean about 11 a day, of course depending on the distances we manage each day.

Either by lifting the canoe out of the water and walking around it, which means physical effort, or going through them the conventional way, which means loss of time (and the need for a lock-key).

New Challenge - canoeing the non-tidal part of the Thames

After a successful 3 peaks walk, during which we raised lots of money for the Nagajuna Trust, it was time to decide on a new challenge. It is late 2010 and a suggestion is made: "Wouldn't it be good to do a new challenge, with a difference. How about we Canoe down the non-tidal part of the Thames? From Cricklade Bridge to Teddington lock. It is only 200km, and we could probably do that in 4 days"

....so decision is made....that's the easy part over.

but...we haven't canoe'd in years, haven't trained, haven't got a canoe....

So the next step: Buy a canoe!