Cliveden in Buckinghamshire is one of our favourite historic houses to visit. The house is currently run as a hotel (afternoon tea there is on my bucket list) but we try to visit throughout the year to enjoy the gardens and tearooms.

Did you know that the Cliveden estate runs along part of the Thames, and you can hire riverboats? This is something we discovered a few years ago and finally got round to doing. Boating has only just opened for the season, but the weather was amazing, so we jumped online to book a boat. Our boat was for 5 people, and we were able to take the dog, which is always a plus point for our family.

Self drive boating at Cliveden

You need to know that if you are going boating a) you need to purchase a ticket for Cliveden, and b) that the boating is quite a way from the car park.   Fortunately, we are lifetime members of the National Trust, but this doesn’t come with priority parking and on the day of our visit, a Bank Holiday in the UK, even the overflow car parks were bursting with visitors. Thankfully we had given ourselves plenty of time so walked through the beautiful grounds around the house and down to the river at Cliveden Reach.

We hadn’t visited this part before and were surprised to see pretty estate cottages along the riverbank. There were a couple of boats available for hire and we were shown ours and given brief instructions.

The instructions were simple: drive on the right, keep to the main channel, and stay well away from the weirs.

We had the boat for an hour and took it upstream to Cookham Lock before heading back the way we had come and further downstream to Boulters Lock.

Everyone had a go at driving the boat and the dog seemed quite happy to sit and watch the world go by. There was lots to see, with other river users, people walking, as well as lots and lots of birds.

It’s a lovely stretch of the river with fabulous views back to Cliveden House and gardens.

Unfortunately the battery kept going on our boat so we had to re-start it  few times. It eventually gave up completely so we had to be towed back to shore! We were given a voucher for another visit and we can’t wait to go again.