From The Sunday Times Travel Magazine

The boats sank low in the water as we loaded the champagne, Pimm’s, beer and, less enthusiastically, tents and sleeping bags.

Rosalind and The Wherry were a pair of sleek, classic beauties, made respectively of cedarwood and sweet chestnut, and the five of us took a moment or two to admire them, glinting in the clear July-morning light, before clambering in for a summer outing with a difference – rowing gently down the river to Henley, for Regatta Week.

When Kenneth Grahame wrote The Wind in the Willows in 1908, the Victorian skiff was the simplest way of getting about on the Thames. Today, it is an endangered species, but that’s no reason not to get out there and row your boat.

The Sunday Times Travel Magazine - December

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You don’t have to own one, you don’t have to be fit, and you certainly don’t have to take it any further than you fancy, thanks to Tom Balm, a boat builder with some splendid specimens for hire: he’ll even deliver them to a slipway of your choice. Which is how we came to be at Long Wittenham, 55km from Henley-on-Thames.

Knowing instinctively that cooking in the open air would be a task too far, we’d rejected Tom’s ‘equipment package’, a double-burner gas stove with plates, cups, cutlery and a washing-up bowl neatly packed into a canvas bag. Foolishly, we’d also failed to prepare Ratty’s mouth-watering luncheon hamper, preferring to throw ourselves on the mercy of the riverside pubs.

From Tom’s exhaustive list of ‘must-haves’, we took only the lemonade for the Pimm’s. But at least we were properly armed, with one heavy-duty plastic watergun per boat, and no danger of running out of ammo. And we’d also remembered the ball of string required to trail the champagne in the cooling current.

The sun was well over the yardarm by the time Jenny seated herself comfortably on Rosalind, in her hands the tiller lines that were required to steer the boat. Mike and I sat opposite her, facing upriver, heavy spruce sculls at the ready. Mike hadn’t done much rowing either, but at least he knew which direction to pull the blades.

Jenny, a veteran of real lessons at Putney, looked on despairingly as we clashed and splashed, while Nick and Neil, in the absence of a tiller man, crashed into the opposite bank. Suddenly the 22km stretch to our designated overnight stop seemed very long indeed.

Then again, there are always ways and means. Once Mike and I opted for one oar each – rowing rather than sculling – we made better progress, while Nick and Neil called on huge reserves of strength to ricochet from bank to bank, stopping only to extricate themselves from low branches and moored boats. In theory, river law

is precise: motor gives way to muscle. In practice, money talks: sleek cruisers owned by men in blazers do as they please, creating ripples of resentment, while everyone else runs for cover.

‘Are we nearly there?’ I asked. Jenny shook her head and pointed the gun menacingly. My heart went out to yesteryear galley slaves. We’d failed to spot the first pub behind a bridge; the second had shut its kitchen; the third served some of the worst food on the planet. On and on we sculled, banging into lock walls under the anxious eyes of their keepers. Deciding in advance that mastering rivercraft would be sufficient education for one day, we’d organised to spend the first night at the John Barleycorn in Goring.

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