Floating boater

As the front of our barge swings alarmingly close to the venerable red brickwork of Sonning Bridge, skipper Andy Cowley combines his skilled attempts at steering the African Queen with an elementary lesson in nautical engineering.

"The whole boat only weighs 125 tonnes," he bellows, "and 37 tonnes of that is ballast in the bottom to get under blighters like this!" Thankfully, Andy's calculations are spot on. While traffic rattles across the bridge, we surge through a semi-circle of daylight and, seconds later, find ourselves in the serenity of another dappled, weeping willow-edged stretch of the River Thames.

This 100ft African Queen, built in Holland in 1923 and a floating hotel on a Scottish canal until 2005, is a far cry from the flimsy vessel which enabled Katharine Hepburn and Humphrey Bogart to elude the Germans in the 1950s' film.

The name just appealed to Andy, who previously ran a hotel on the Isle of Wight, after he found the boat in Ireland and sailed it back across the Irish Sea.

The subsequent conversion is easily three or four times the size of anything going past in the opposite direction.

Viewed from the riverbank, it can look like a huge black bath tub, with a temporary classroom on top. There's also plenty of room for an open deck, with lounge and dining areas, open bar and kitchen inside. Below deck, living space is a bit tighter: of seven guest cabins, five are doubles, besides the living quarters of Andy and his South African wife, Bonny, who bought the boat as a way to live in the Thames Valley and earn a living at the same time.

My luxury cabin was the only one where it was possible to get out of bed on both sides. The size and workings of the en suite bathroom would be familiar to regular sailors. Saga Holidays offers a range of British getaways, and I can see why the African Queen joins the list.

Once you climb the gangway from the riverbank in sleepy Mapledurham to a warm welcome from the crew, this intriguing voyage becomes an adventure in itself. Even before we reached the first lock, yards away, a delicious cream tea was served. Passers-by on the towpath gawped enviously.

On the bridge, Andy despatched blasts of his vuvuzela at friends and foes alike, especially other boat owners queue-jumping at locks. Lock-keepers noted his antics with genial waves.

After a few hours of chugging and the occasional glass of bubbly, we tied up for the first night within a few hundred yards of the centre of Sonning.

"More like a stage village than one built of bricks and mortar" is how Jerome K Jerome described Sonning in Three Men In A Boat, and it's easy to see his point.

The author also identified the splendid Norman parish church and the pub next door as the best things to see – and he's spot on, even though his book first appeared back in 1889.

Back on board, Bonny's first dinner menu was strongly influenced by Cape Malay recipes. There's something rather bewitching about eating in the silence of the river bank, as darkness descends slowly across the water.

From that moment onwards, we keenly anticipated the clanking bell which summoned passengers to breakfast, lunch and dinner. Next morning, as the sun slowly parted the clouds, we enjoyed cups of tea on the open deck – the on-board team pointing out the difference between egrets, wet weeks and wandering warblers.

Soon, dramatic moments in nature were unfolding on a regular basis – and that didn't include the occasional broad-bellied humans sliding into the water off ropes lashed to overhanging branches, or middle-aged joggers looking fit to burst.

On the riverbank, everybody is so friendly and ready to pass the time of day. Even swans squawked happily beneath a bombardment of crusty brown bread below Caversham Bridge.

Saga, as we all know, fixes holidays mainly for over-50s. And perhaps you need to be greying at the temples to be a little moved by the sight of St Mary's Parish Church standing proudly above Henley-on-Thames, its flag flying proudly from the tower, as you round a bend in the river.

There is something magnificent, too, about the view across the meadows beyond Mapledurham, a picture of rural tranquillity within an hour of London, and a few miles from the M4.

The package also includes a talk from a Blue Badge Guide. Hilary Thomson explained how the Thames was opened up to mass tourism by railways in Victorian England – and how Kenneth Grahame's The Wind In The Willows, the children's tale, was possibly inspired by a house on the river between Mapledurham and Goring.

Maybe, too, it is over-50s who most relish a nosey view of so many millionaires' magnificent mansions.

Can we really have suffered a recession, when so many can afford boathouses as miniatures of their main address?

River cruises also include outings to local attractions, to vary the routine.

We spent a fascinating day in Henley, at its River and Rowing Museum, which explains the skill and passion of the sport to those who know little about it.

Next day, we tackled the maze attached to the Herb Farm at Sonning Common, and recovered our composure to visit Mapledurham House, a magnificent home recorded in the Domesday Book and owned by the Blount family since the Norman invasion. The Blounts lost wealth and influence because of their steadfast Catholicism. Today, their estate includes the only working mill on the Thames still producing stone-ground flour, 17th century almshouses converted into homes, and a church with 14th century sections. Of course, a river cruise also allows you to make your own entertainment. To stretch the legs, you hop ashore at the lock, to cycle or walk

to the next.

Whatever you find to do, however, little matches the quiet contentment of sitting on the open deck as the world goes slowly by, with the engines humming and scarcely a cloud in the sky.

Book your berth for a trip on the river

Jeremy Gates was a guest of Saga Holidays, which offers five nights' full board (wine with dinner) on the African Queen from 689 (two sharing). Package includes two excursions, talk from a Blue Badge Guide, a hosting service by owners, welcome drink, cream tea, cocktail party, porterage and cancellation cover. Drinks at bar cost extra.

Bookings are being taken for departures from April 2011.

Saga reservations: 0800 056 5880 and www.sagaholidays.co.uk.

YP MAG 23/10/10