Goring to Wallingford

For the first time since Hammersmith there appeared to be a choice for the entire route of the this stretch of the walk over which side of the river to walk on. Because of reasons which later turned out to be spurious we chose to walk on the west bank/north bank. This path was actually part of the Ridgeway walk (which connects Grimes Graves in Norfolk with Avebury in Wiltshire) rather than the official Thames path. One unintended result was that the walk this week did follow the river as closely as we usually track it. The river was in sight for only about half of the walk and we walked beside it for only about a two mile stretch. One impressive sight along the way was this kite which soared in and amongst the trees and telegraph wires just north of Goring. It appeared to have a large chunk bitten out of one of its wings.

Alfie, Ray, Natasha, Chris, Louise and Raja came on this the eighteenth stage of the Thames walk.

An eight passes through the double arches of Moulsford Viaduct. The older part of the bridge dates from 1838 and is another bridge built by Isambard Kingdom Brunel. The first two we passed were at Maidenhead and at Gatehampton near Goring.

Louise became the seventeenth Thames Walker

Workmen's tools left on the ground at North Stoke. Michael Caine lived at the Rectory Farm House in North Stoke, while Ian Gillan, formerly of Deep Purple used to live in a large house here and did the rock star thing by building a guitar-shaped swimming pool.

After arriving in Wallingford we ended up getting a taxi back to Goring to eat at the Miller of Mansfield. The pub was trying much too hard (and hilariously) to be an edgy urban hangout in a completely rural Oxfordshire village. Here Alfie is chillin to the vibe and just "Being"