It’s been a long time since we have done a leg of the Thames Path. Too long in fact. It was eight months ago that we did the last leg ending in Shillingford and made the bold statement that we would aim to be in Oxford by the end of the year. What happened? Life got in the way basically. We’ve been too busy with other things or the weather has been too bad. Ironically when we put this date in the diary we didn’t know, of course, that we were going to be walking on the hottest day of the year so far.
Avoiding the weather
We are trying to do the whole length of the path reaching each stage by public transport. To date, that has been relatively straightforward but we know that after the next couple of legs it’s going to become more challenging. In order to walk in the cooler weather we decided to get an early bus to Shillingford. Even leaving home at 7 am it still took us two hours to reach the start point.
After a layoff of eight months the thought of a ten mile walk in the heat was not something that either of us were looking forward to but we’d managed a seven mile walk a week ago so we knew we’d be fine. Once we’d got into our stride it was ok and this leg was almost all along the river bank with no detours for closed bridges or other obstructions.
Wildlife
There wasn’t much in the way of wildlife today other than lots of attractive dragonflies but what there was a lot of birds. I’ve recently started using the Merlin app to identify birds from their song and this was a great opportunity to try it out.
I was surprised by the variety of birds that it thought we’d heard (the Siskin was marked as suspect and I’ve never even heard of that!). The other thing that surprised me was that the volume of the birdsong seems to be inversely proportional to the size of the bird. The wren and robins are very noisy!
A Sort of Homecoming
Our final destination today was the town of Abingdon, where a lifetime ago I went to college. It’s also home to the band Radiohead, but they went to a very different educational establishment than I did.
College represented freedom to me. I’d not enjoyed school, and the environment at Abingdon was much more to my liking. You were treated more as an adult, and the staff there took the view that you had to take personal responsibility, and it was up to you, not them, whether you turned up and passed. I was also lucky to have an English teacher who helped me pass my ‘O’ Level. I’m not sure that she improved my English, although I guess she must have, but she gave me tools and techniques to pass the exam, which was what I really needed. I wish I could remember her name.
We arrived in Abingdon four hours after leaving Shillingford (including 20 minutes for breaks) and feel that we’d done well to set such a pace in this weather. We have the next leg booked for this Thursday but it is predicted to be even hotter so let’s see if we actually do it…
To Date
Day: 15
Start: Shillingford
End: Abingdon
Distance: 10.21 miles
Cumulative: 126.14 miles
To go: 60 miles