Members of Abingdon Rowing Club were working in the early hours making preparations, then welcoming and helping crews, for the 2014 Abingdon Head of the River rowing time trials.

Rye Farm Meadow, where boats were brought, is still soft in patches having been under water a lot of the winter.

The first of 4 divisions left the meadow before 9am to row downstream to the start near Culham weir. There were up to 90 boats in each division.

Then at 9:30, 11:45, 14:00, and 16:15 boats raced upstream the 2000 metres to the finishing post, opposite Ferry Boat House on Wilsham Road.

On the same day as the University Boat Race, which Oxford were to win, rowers gave their all.

At Rye Farm Meadow where crews embarked and disembarked there was beer, homemade cakes, a BBQ, and entertainment by the Abingdon Traditional Morris Dancers.

More pictures on Abingdon Blog Facebook.

A bottle of water taken at the source of the River Thames in Gloucestershire is being carried by a relay of walkers, swimmers, kayakers, rowers, and sailors to the city of London then out to sea. The relay began on September 1st and will finish on September 15th.

Today, the bottle was brought to Abingdon by Arwyn, a 1960’s electric powered sailing boat, on behalf of the Electric Boat Association, and the Abbey Sailing Club – which celebrates 80 years in 2013.

The Abingdon lock keeper is on holiday this week, and so the relief lock keeper will keep the bottle overnight and entrust it to the rowers tomorrow. Both Abingdon Rowing Club and the City of Oxford Rowing Club will speed the bottle as far as Benson Lock.

This is part of the Thames Festival, celebrating the iconic River Thames.

Rich Hawkins has taken over as the new Abingdon lock keeper, and will be moving into the lock house at the start of September. He has previously served as a relief lock keeper on the River Thames for five or six years.

It sounds as though he has already been in charge at Abingdon since last winter when the River Thames had strong flows and was close to flooding on two or three occasions, and when Abingdon’s lock chamber was relined.

He writes an occasional column called ‘Go with the flow’ in the Abingdon Herald – as one of the new community writers.

There could be excitement ahead as the lock gates are to be refurbished this coming winter. Then Abingdon Hydro could build some electricity generating turbines.