Five travel writers share their favourite holidays at home, from gravel biking in Scotland and a steam train ride in Yorkshire to rowing all the way from Oxford to London
One of my best UK holidays was the week I spent in June 2013 rowing from Oxford to London with two friends, James and Tom.
We hired the boat from a company called Thames Skiff Hire that mainly caters to people recreating the fictional adventure of the characters in Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat. Our boat – Ewen – was a 26ft, 130-year-old mahogany skiff. It came with two pairs of oars, a rudder, a cooking stove, a boat hook, and iron hoops that supported a green canvas roof over the hull.
After an hour’s briefing at a slipway by Donnington Bridge, we were off, piloting the boat 80 or so miles downstream to London. That June was blustery and wet. The first day was deceptively fine, but on the second, we got soaked on the stretch of water between Abingdon and Day’s Lock, and came close to packing it in.
Even with the current helping us, the miles ahead seemed like folly. It’s not generally remembered that Jerome K Jerome’s Three Men in a Boat ends in disappointment and recrimination as the companions abandon their sodden skiff at The Swan in Pangbourne.
