The skies clouded over today and the breeze was quite cool, with slight rain in the air and so, having made good progress on our cruise yesterday, we thought today could be a good day to visit Windsor Castle. We set off through Cookham hoping to find a taxi office or some form of transport but had walked out of the other end of the village centre and found nothing, when a bus stopped on its way to Maidenhead. The driver told us we could change at Maidenhead for Windsor and so we then started a magical mystery tour of the area as these buses now visit every housing estate and back lane to justify their existence.

On arrival in Windsor we were pleased and relieved to find that the castle was open and situated centrally in the town and so sandwiched between home made soup in the Horse & Groom Inn for lunch and cream tea in the Crooked House tea shop afterwards we had an excellent tour of Windsor Castle. Our tour guide Rodney, one of the castle wardens, combined historical detail with humour to provide a most entertaining tour of this oldest continuously occupied castle in the world.

The art, furnishings and the prospects from the ramparts were particularly impressive, and the work done in renovating the castle after the tragic fire has been perfect. After some shopping at the excellent shops in the centre of Windsor, we made the somewhat easier return journey by taxi, which gave us time to cruise an hour or two in Lady Martina at the end of the day. By this time the clouds had cleared and the sun shone, as we made the relatively short trip to Marlow, where we moored above the bridge next to the manicured lawns of the local leisure centre.

A short walk up the high street of Marlow provided all the fresh provisions that we could carry and we were relieved to find that we were now mostly outside the flight zone of Heathrow airport which had somewhat spoiled some of the venues further down the river.

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Cruising Statistics

Distance: 3 nm

Total to date: 317 nm

Avg Speed: 5 knots

Duration: 1 hour

Wind: SW 4-5

Mooring: £6

Electricity: N/A

Locks

Marlow

Bridges

Bourne End Rail 15'6

Marlow Bisham Bypass 19'9

Marlow Bridge 12'8