A Walkers Tale

Today was my final of five days spent walking along the River Thames - I had set out from Weybridge four days prior, and today I would be walking the last section from Abingdon to Oxford. This followed on from a previous day walking from Goring to Abingdon .

After a shorter previous day (as I continue a five day walk along the Thames Path ), today I am walking a longer distance - with the plan to walk from Goring to Abingdon. 

On my third of five days walking the Thames Path , I am today walking from Reading to Goring - which is set to be the shortest day of walking of the five days.  Originally I had planned to finish in Chorley (very slightly further down the Thames), but even before setting out I have decided to further shorten the day, as it is set to be a very wet day.

Today is the second of five days spent walking the Thames Path - having spent the previous day walking from Weybridge up to Maidenhead . And today's walking will take us from Maidenhead to Reading.

Today I am starting out on my last major walk of the year - and this will be a five day odyssey, starting at Weybridge, and continuing on up to Oxford - along the River Thames. And by the end of this walk I will have walked the full stretch of the Thames Path between Oxford and the Thames Barrier.

It was a wet start to the day on a walk where I would once again be ticking off another (fairly short) section of the Thames Path .  Prior to this walk I had done four sections along this route - ticking off sections from the Thames Barrier to Hampton Court - with the last section being from Hampton Court to Richmond . 

This is a fairly section on the Thames Path  - running from Hampton Court up to Richmond - with this joining up with a route walked previously from Battersea to Richmond . And upon reaching Hampton Court station we head out and almost immediately rejoin the edge of the river - and here we pass over Hampton Court Bridge, and meet up with Hampton Court Palace.

This route follows on from a stretch of the Thames Path previously walked, running from Waterloo to Battersea  (having started at Kings Cross originally). As before, this walk was done on a trip down through London - heading south to see family (although on this occasion I do not really benefit at all since the train from Richmond has to head back to Clapham Junction before it can take me south again). 

Earlier in the year I had done my first proper walk along the Thames Path - walking down from Kings Cross to meet the River at Embankment, and then walking along the Thames from Embankment to Battersea . That replicated a trip I had done many times - crossing London from north to south - but usually I had done that route on the underground, which isn't quite as enjoyable.

I fairly regularly head through London on the way to visit family in the south of England. My typical route through London, is to get off the train at Kings Cross, head down into the underground, and then head back up to the surface to take a train down - having successfully navigated past London.