Walk, Woodley to Twyford, 5.5 miles

21 April

A more modest little number this one, but still a bit of exercise. Took Reading Buses' 13 service from the station to The Drive stop on London Road. Walked up Shepherds Hill and crossed to the middle of the roundabout, where there are a few houses and a BP garage. Here's what the roundabout looked like in 1970, though I don't remember it then. Crossed and headed up Old Bath Road past a couple of snazzy bungalows that I wouldn't say no to, then turned right into Warren Road. Walked across the railway bridge over Sonning Cutting - I always find this bridge slightly unnerving, possibly because it's a quiet road and a partially open-sided bridge. Stopped by one of the Samaritans posters for a quick drink of water. Here's a Geograph photo of the bridge and the cutting in the snow.

Walked on through the northern part of Woodley, sitting down on a bench briefly in Woodford Park for Ruth to eat an energy ball, which seemed to revive her. Carried on to Waingels Road and turned right opposite the former Waingels Copse School onto an initially narrow footpath, opening out to run alongside a lake. Peaceful spot; we only saw a couple of anglers. Emerging from the footpath we carried on down Landsend Lane and went for a quick gander at Land's End ford, frequently in the local press after heavy rain with "D'oh, Another One's Done It" style headlines (and here's a piece in the Mail Online from 2010). There have been mutterings from locals, and possibly also the emergency services, that the next person who drives into it can just get themselves out.

Goods train seen from the Warren Road Bridge	In Woodford Park
Lake near Ashenbury Park	Land's End ford near Charvil

We crossed the Loddon at the footbridge not far from the ford and walked a short way down Whistley Mill Lane before turning left onto a footpath signposted to Twyford. Walked on under the railway and through the Loddon Nature Reserve, following a path along the Loddon to come out on the A3032 Old Bath Road in Twyford (the road used to be the main A4 before Twyford was bypassed in the 1920s). Turned right towards the town and popped into The Duke of Wellington for a reviving drink, before catching a train back to Reading.

Map of the route:

Walk, Marlow to Caversham, 16.2 miles

15 April

This walk was intended to be a serious test of my fitness for the upcoming trek distance. Again Ruth surprised me by offering to come, though she seems to be suffering from hip and knee pain after a certain number of miles, so I suggested that she dropped out halfway and went home if the distance was too much. Decided on a route along the Thames from Marlow to Henley, then across country via Harpsden and Binfield Heath back to Caversham (going the whole way back to Reading along the Thames Path would have taken the walk to 18 miles or so).

We took the Arriva 800 bus (an excellent service) at 0916, arriving in Marlow just before 10 am. Had only a brief wobble while walking down the high street to the river when Ruth tried to veer off into India Jane, but I managed to catch her in time before any shopping started. Set off westwards along the Thames Path, crossing the river at Temple Footbridge. At Hurley, the path crosses briefly back to an island in the middle of the river, where we stopped for a welcome cup of tea and ate the chipolatas and hard-boiled eggs we'd brought with us. Continued on past the lock and back across another bridge to the south (Berkshire) bank. Onwards past the collection of bungalows off Black Boy Lane - these form an interesting contrast with most of the properties along the river banks - and the posher houses at Frogmill.

A bit further on the path crossed in front of Culham Court and into trees before emerging on Aston Lane by The Flower Pot. Here we continued along Remenham Lane, rejoining the Thames Path at Remenham. Continued on into Henley, which was the halfway point, and sat on a bench by The Angel to eat some sandwiches. Ruth decided she was OK to continue, so after a visit to the public conveniences at Mill Meadows we turned away from the Thames Path and headed out of the town via Harpsden Road and Harpsden Way. Passed the gates of the 13th-century Harpsden Court, which appears to have been for sale last year. Puffed our way up Chalk Hill and then, after dodging traffic and golfers from Henley Golf Club, past Mays Green to Binfield Heath, passing The Bottle & Glass, which Ruth looked at wistfully.

Thames near Henley	Gates of Harpsden Court
Walking through Harpsden	Bluebells in woodland near Binfield Heath

We stopped briefly - our third and last stop - at a picnic table in Binfield Heath to have a drink and eat some sweet stuff, then tramped the last few miles via Dunsden Green and Kiln Road down into Caversham.

Map of the route:

Here's the elevation and pace graph. Chalk Hill is the steep climb at about time 3:45.

Feet a bit tired afterwards, and we did little that evening other than flop around and order a Thai takeaway, but on the whole few after effects. Am reasonably encouraged. It's still only half the bloody trek distance though.

Walk, Thames Path from Windsor to Maidenhead, 11.73 miles

8 April

Ruth surprised me by offering to come with me for this one. We took the train (well, two trains) around 9:30am from Reading to Windsor & Eton Central. On arrival, Ruth decided she was hungry and needed fortifying before we set off - this wasn't unexpected, but her sudden craving for a sausage roll was, meaning that we had to walk past lots of nice potential second breakfast spots in the 'Windsor Royal Shopping' arcade and ended up at a fairly terrible café on Thames Street called 'Lilebet's' - I can find no reference to it online which seems odd. To prove it exists, here's our receipt. The 'Misc Food' was two sausage rolls - I only had a couple of bites of mine as it was fairly dire. We agreed later to airbrush the incident out of history. Except that I've just recorded it here.

We crossed the pedestrianised Windsor Bridge into Eton and turned left to cross the Brocas, following bends in the river for a while, passing Royal Windsor Racecourse on the opposite bank, before we briefly detoured to look at the chapel of St Mary Magdalene, Boveney. Cute little church with a weatherboarded tower. It's apparently under the care of the Friends of Friendless Churches, which is nice. Very plain building but it looked well cared for.

The path passed close to one end of the huge Dorney Lake and its clubhouse, where we once held an event when I worked for Progress South Central. A while further on, more interestingly, we passed Oakley Court, a Victorian Gothic house that was briefly home to Hammer Films in the late 1940s/early 1950s. Hammer seem to have made a bit of a thing of shooting in country houses - prior to moving to Oakley, they apparently occupied another large house in Cookham Dean - variously referred to online as Dial Close and as Dial Place; I didn't manage to find a photo - before being asked to leave after locals complained about the noise. After leaving Oakley, they seem to have moved to a house in Essex and then back to the Thames again to Down Place, which became Bray Studios. The site unfortunately seems to be under threat - I guess the temptation to sell the prime Thames-side site for housing will be just too tempting. We did pass Down Place a short way on from Oakley Court, looking derelict. On a brighter note, Oakley Court is clearly thriving in its current guise as a luxury hotel - its lawns were covered in people sunning themselves when we passed.

Chapel of St Mary Magdalene, Boveney	Oakley Court
Sunny path	The former Bray Studios

At Summerleaze Footbridge we crossed to the Bray side of the river and took a rather longer than expected detour into the village to look for lunch. I had naively imagined it might have something like a café doing cheese toasties, but there's nothing there apart from high-end looking pubs and restaurants. We made for The Crown, which was the most accessible-looking one, though we soon realised it was fairly posh. The staff were lovely though and we had a very pleasant lunch in the sunny courtyard. I only discovered later that it's owned by Heston Blumenthal, who evidently owns several establishments in Bray. There's a complimentary review of The Crown here.

Map of the route

After lunch we retraced our steps to the footbridge - we'd hoped it might be possible to re-cross the Thames at Bray Lock, but it isn't (we established this from the helpful valet outside The Waterside Inn). We trundled on for the remaining couple of miles to Maidenhead Bridge and then the remaining mile through the town to the railway station.

Bray and The Waterside Inn from the opposite bank