For the first time, here I am at Drayton Lock: this is normally considered to be Abingdon Branch's territory, but we've decided to combine forces and have a good scrub-bash. The lock is situated rurally, at about a mid-point between East Hanney, Steventon, and Drayton villages, and is reached via a farm track that follows the line of the canal - now paved over and farmed. By the way, this pic shows where the track leaves the Hanney Road, it doesn't show the lock location..... thanks Malcy for pointing that out....!!

It's slap bang in the planned reservoir area, of which I'm sure you've heard: eighty foot high embankments, half the size of Lake Windemere, loss of good Oxfordshire farmland, higher than church steeple in Steventon etc etc. You may be wondering why we'd bother to spend time clearing it out, if there's a good chance of it being inundated? Well, most of us were wondering as well, it turns out that Thames Water were of the opinion that the canal restoration was not serious, as "no work has been done" in that area. Duh! Why would we do work on that section, if it's going to have to be re-routed around the new reservoir? Anyway, to show willing, we are tidying it up, to prove to Thames Water that the Canal Trust are indeed active in this area. Hmmph. Anyway, on with the plot:

Having parked in the farmer's yard (with many thanks) we loaded up the wheelbarrows and set off along the extremely muddy bridleway running alongside the line of the canal.That's Jim on the right, saying "come on!"

So off we set, carrying out market research en route to determine if a wheelbarrow is better pulled, or pushed, on deep mud. (Did we establish the answer? Well, no. We did establish, however, that moving wheelbarrows on deep mud is extremely hard work.)

In case you're wondering what we have in our wheelbarrows, here's a sample; a selection of tools, usually slashers (long-handled and short-handled), pitchforks, bowsaws and spades: plus our own nosebags, chairs etc.

Oh look! Here's Doug with his hat on backwards, videoing the line of the canal. It's his current big project, to get footage of as much of the line as possible. It'll be very interesting to play it back at high speed! Neeeow! There was a suggestion that Phil could strap Doug to the underside of his glider, and simply fly along the line, but Phil felt that Doug wasn't quite aerodynamically shaped, and might affect his glide angle. Shame....

Ah, we've hit a snag: a mighty tree has fallen down and blocked the bridleway completely. Roy and Malcy get in there with bowsaws, and start making a way through. It must have only just happened, otherwise the council would have been out clearing it, as the bridleway is quite well used. It's too big for us to tackle with only the tools we have, but we do our best to make a clear way through.

Right, we can see daylight, we've pushed Jim through to catch us, now let's get the wheelbarrows through:

Huuup!

And here's me doing the can-can (thanks Alistair!). Alternative caption: me getting my leg over, ha! ha!

Right, enough of the frivolity, here's Nice Geoff, on his first outing with us, wondering what on earth he's got himself into! It's all right, we don't expect anyone to move three wheelbarrows by themselves.... we're trying to get Vic to stop chopping away at the fallen tree. "We're all through, Vic!"

Here are our merry band, staggering bravely through the mud - ok Alistair, I know why you've taken the picture, any excuse to avoid wheelbarrow duty! (only joking, I'm avoiding it as well, you might notice!) You can see the fallen tree behind us, and the small hole that we made to clamber through. I don't think any horse riders are going to make it, though! We plod on, and on, and on.... prompting cries of "wouldn't it have been easier to park at Drayton and walk a short distance back, instead?"

Finally, we arrive at the Lock. The chamber is in remarkably good condition, it just needs a bit of tidying. I'll ignore Alistair's cheesy grin....

Three good men and true... Nice Geoff, Roy and Malcy admire the chamber in unison. Roy admits that it was such a long walk, we've earned a tea break. Tea break before we start work! Never been known..... Malcy says that last time he was here, he made a seat. (Officially, Malcy is an Abingdon branch member.) We decide it would be a good place to have a tea break.

Talking of cheesy grins, here's Malcy showing us the picnic table and settee. The rest of us are a bit nonplussed that the promised "seat" has turned out to be cold, hard stone... but you can see that Malcy's pleased with it. We return to the sunny upper levels for tea break!

Here's the view back along the cut looking westwards: as you can see, quite a nice stretch, not a bad profile, and just crying out for a bonfire.

So I'm told to rub two boy scouts together and get a fire going. Malcy comes over to see how I'm getting on, and thanks to Alistair for the photo.

I get the fire going, and the rest of the gang start chopping. Just look at that beautiful blue sky!

An interesting shot, Malcy and Bob "looking at something". Photo: Alistair. (Ali - what on earth were they looking at?)

Roy "tossing the caber" onto my fire:

...and Alistair trying to do the same. "Don't forget to let go of it!"

In no time at all, the fire is blazing, the scrub is coming down, and jumpers are coming off.

Me and Bob on fire-warden duty. It's very important to keep an eye on the fire, you know. All sorts of bad things can happen if you don't have at least two blokes standing and watching it.... we decide that it's time to encourage Roy to let us have lunch break.

After lunch, back to feeding the bonfire. But what's this? Big excitement, Jim was tidying scrub beside the lock and found something interesting, a blue sandwich box! Shh, don't tell Vic until we've had time to have a look at it.

It's a "Geocache" apparently: and if, like all of us, you've never heard of this before, it's an international game using a GPS to detail the hidden location of a weatherproof box containing a log book, and an assortment of odd items. The idea is that you check their website - www.geocacheuk.com/ - for caches near you, then you go out with your GPS to the location given, and hunt for the cache. Sort of high-tech hide and seek. When you find it, you write your name and the date in the log book, and replace it. Oh, and you're allowed to take an item from the box (mostly kiddy's toys!) as long as you put something else in it's place. Seems harmless enough!

We open the box (to cries of "No! Take the money!" showing our age, there) and add an entry to the logbook. Fascinatingly, it was started in Feb 2003, and the logbook was nearly full with entries, the most recent before us being late December of last year. So it's not as much of a minority thing as we may have thought!

Of particular interest was this Geocache medal, the laminated label indicated that it was a "travelling" item, and whoever found it was supposed to take it, and move it to the next Geocache that they found. We decided to leave it, obviously, but we hope that it enjoys it's brief stay at Drayton. Another of Alistair's photos, by the way - I can't get close-ups this clear with my little camera!

Then we hid it back in the hollow tree where Jim found it, and replaced the disguising slate, moss etc.

What on earth are they all pointing at? I have no idea, this is one of Alistair's photos... captions invited on a postcard, please.

We're nearly done with the clearing, just this one tree to go. John starts sawing at it, while Vic and Jim stand and watch, offering helpful comments.

Bob takes over sawing, while the other help by leaning on it.

Finally! Over it goes, dead on target into the middle of the fire.

Well, that was my lot for the day, time to paddle back through the mud then go home for a nice hot cup of tea, and some interesting research on the Geocache site......