Re-Visiting Oxford, England 2019/Carlos Pueblo

Re-Visiting Oxford, England 2019/Carlos Pueblo

There are canals and rivers network at Oxford, England that a train conductor, a canal
expert, recommends me to visit. I have been to the upstream of River Thames several
times and I find that I can visit the canal on an opposite direction during my weekend
stay at this lovely college town.

After putting down my luggage, I walked across a bridge above the upstream of the
Thames toward the downtown, all Oxford Colleges located. I found that the old square
of the bus station became a barzar again with many eatery stands crowded with visitors.
I didn't find the Turks rolls like my first visit to this city, instead I picked a dumpling place
my lunch and I was not impressed.

Returning to the bridge and began to walk down to the canal, I found a metal plat on the
ground to commemorate the 200 years built of the canal, 1790-1990. It is almost 230 years
of usage for this waterway and still quite vivid in compare to all my canals visits before.
The width of this canal is wider with a river parallel briefly next to it. On the pedestrian
path, there are many barges, house boats, moored by the bank, aged boats mostly. Based
on the appearance of the barge installation, I believe that they are residents of the city.
By the path, there are city water connection, power source, and even shower facility, etc.
Across the canal on the other side, it is a regular residential brick houses with the traditional
English style and the backyard facing the water with some pretty garden. Some residents even
have pies built to have a way to use the canal.

I see at least a larger pier with larger barge on the other side of the pedestrian path for canal
touring use. After the residential area, it is become a large tennis park of many many grass
tennis courts full of uniform girls taking lessons or some kinds of weekend activities. On the
walking path, the parallel creek ended and followed by some regular farm houses with horses on the backyards. There is a birds sanctuary park on the same side. I kept on marching
as far as I could. I saw a bridge and exit to a small playground of a nice apartment complex
and I thought of using a toilet and have a small eatery like in Birmingham canals. I was lost at
the apartment side street and couldn't locate the street across the bridge or any sign of a
business set up at all.

Until I felt enough and I returned back to the city. There were more pedestrians on both
directions and I believed that was a main pass for some residents nearby. I inspected the barge more and again. I even watched a barge full of youngsters passing through to reach
the city even though they looked green of their operation yet there was someone in their
group who could come to rescue at the mess up situation.

Some of the barge residents look like permanent, they even cultivate small gardens by the
path or built grill stand for regular use. They lock their bikes either on the boat or by the path
with permanent fixture.