Wallingford's Riverside Car Park on a bright and breezy August morning: an empty and sad-looking outdoor swimming pool surrounded by a razor wire-topped security fence; a family inflating paddle boards and canoes for a day on the Thames; seven Berkshire Weekend Walkers getting ready for a 10.5 mile walk.
The first few miles of our walk were on named paths: the Thames Path to the Wallingford ring road bridge over the river and then the Ridgeway to North Stoke. Here there was the chance for an early coffee break in the garden of the village hall, a sign above the hall's door proudly announcing that the it had been built in 1911. I wonder how many walkers have stopped here for a coffee or tea break in the intervening one hundred and nine years?
We left the course of the Thames at Littlestoke Manor on another named path - the Swan's Way - as we gently climbed up and over a chalk downland landscape of large fields of recently harvested arable crops and past Watch Folly, present on the Ordnance Survey map but no longer present on the ground.
After having survived the first of two crossings of the A4074, we stopped for lunch at the tiny village of Ipsden.
There wasn't a cricket match being played on the green, so we had to be content with admiring the distant view of what remains of Didcot Power Station.
After lunch we walked north, resisting the temptations of the King William IV pub at Hailey. Just over a mile after Hailey (and still thirsty) we reached the iron age linear fortification - or boundary marker - known as Grim's Ditch. Just as on the recce for this walk, our arrival coincided with the appearance of black clouds and a - thankfully short - shower. Waterproofs were on and then off as we followed Grim's Ditch back towards our second crossing of the A4074. Once again, we all survived and were now honing in on the finish. Past a caravan park, across a water meadow and, quite suddenly, there was Wallingford Bridge and the Riverside Car Park.
Thank you to Nigel for leading this walk and writing it up, and to Sharon for providing the photographs.
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