After plenty of practice hiking around Reading I had become a little disheartened … having ridden the quiet lanes and back roads of the Thames Valley for 20 years I recognise where I am pretty quickly. This was very hard to deal with when following a trail for an hour or so to come out somewhere I knew and would have been reached in quick time by bike.
So in order to break this cycle I decided to head away for a couple of days. I booked return ticket to Kemble (15 minutes north of Swindon on the train) then set about working out a couple of hikes.
Wanted to do 25km+ each day and find somewhere nice to stay and eat. I looked at the Thames Path and found The Old Spotted Cow at Marston Meysey which was at 30km from Kemble. Ideal. So walks were sorted. Thames Path on day one via Cricklade and back slightly further north via Cirencester. 28km back. Perfect.
So after an early train from Reading to Kemble I easily found my way to the Thames Path – straight away I was amazed that the river that flows through Reading and onto London was merely a burbling, crystal-clear stream here in south Gloucestershire. No more than inches deep and a few feet wide.
I was using this two-day walk to try out walking poles for the first time. I popped into Decathlon and picked up a pair the day before. Many people swear by them, if it makes it easier, hurt less and lessens chance of injuries then I’m all for it!
A few things I knew about the day ahead of me; it would be my longest walk so far, I would not have to map-read at all as I followed the Thames Path for all but 2km at the end of the day, and I would be very lacking in undulation!!
The first ten kms took me my through the lakes of South Cerney that are now the Cotswold Water Park. As well as containing a couple of picture postcard villages, these former gravel pits were teaming with springtime flora and fauna. One village, Ashton Keynes I think, even had a Pilgrim Cottage! I spent quite a large amount of time looking at birds and listening to their song, identifying a few calls via the BirdUp app on my phone! Saw a lot of tits, Great, Blue, Long-tailed, Coal, Marsh and Crested as well as woodpeckers, blackbirds, wrens, nuthatches, treecreepers, thrushes, early arriving swallows and plenty of ducks, geese and swans. Just before my lunch stop I saw a first for me – a pair of hawfinches on a bush just in front of my path – I followed them with my monocular into the trees and just couldn’t stop marvelling at their massive, powerful beak.
All along the walk I noticed oddities – particularly odd were a couple of old advertisements, the old metal type nailed to the walls. Nostalgia of a by-gone era.
So after 20km I arrived in Cricklade and, having done a little research, found the Red Lion for lunch. A splendid home-made fish finger sandwich accompanied by a pint of Liquid Highway – a bitter brewed on-site and named in honour of the National Trail I had been following all morning.
With a spring in my step and beer in my belly I headed further east along the Thames Path. The little stream growing in depth and width with every km. No longer a stream but a small fast flowing river. All the way to Castle Eaton the path hugged the banks of the maturing river. By the time I crossed it for the final time and headed north to my lodgings at Marston Meysey, it was about 5m wide and too deep to see the bottom!
The Old Spotted Cow is a treat for a tired peregrino. I was welcomed with a smile, shown my room and given a flask of fresh milk so I could make a cuppa! I think tea may be one of my biggest ‘misses’ on the Camino in the summer! After a blissful hot shower, including a trial run of washing the days kit in the sink, then rinsing in the shower tray, I settled down to watch the news and give my feet, and my eyelids, a rest.
My old college tutor joined me for dinner and my starter of macaroni cheese followed by bubble and squeak with back bacon really hit the spot. However this tired walker always wants to get his head down and sleep – so I said goodbye and it was an early night.
Next morning I woke, showered and went down for a delicious breakfast before setting off back towards Kemble. This time my route would follow a north-west direction via the Ampneys and Cirencester then back south to the actual source of the Thames and the final 3km to Kemble for a train back to Reading. Before leaving Marston Meysey I popped along to have a look at the village church, which was of course St James’. These quirks just seem to keep on happening!
After a couple of kms I heard the sound of JCBs – having only really heard birdsong, wind in trees, and flowing water the day before, this came as a bit of an early morning surprise. Especially as the three JCBs I could hear appeared to be digging up a very green, arable field. Then a few hi-viz clad bodies popped up from the trenches and it made a bit more sense. A Wessex Archaeology vehicle confirmed my thoughts, a dig of some sort. The region is rich in stone age, iron age and roman history.
I then headed on to the charming cluster of villages, the Ampneys – St Mary, St Peter and Ampney Crucis. Here I noticed another house named Pilgrims and also a house bearing the Indalo. Now the Indalo is the symbol of Almeria – a place very dear to me, where we are lucky enough to have a small property and are priviledged to spend much time. Almeria is also the start of the Camino Mozarabe which is something I would like to walk at some time in the future. Ampney Crucis also had a Victorian postbox that had been painted gold in hours of a 2012 Olympic gold-medallist in dressage!
After a lunch at 20km in Cirencester, an encounter with a large, multi-coloured hare and a brief foot-rest at the town’s roman amphiteatre I moved on for the final section of the walk. Passing through the grounds of the Royal Agricultural College and following the path of the Monarch’s Way south towards Kemble. The Monarch’s Way follows the approximate route taken by the fleeing, defeated King Charles I from Worcester via Cirencester, Bristol and Yeovil before heading east to Brighton and finally to the port at Shoreham – a 615 mile route for anyone wanting a long-distance trail in the UK.
Finally I reached the source of the Thames – or at least where it should have sprung from the ground according to the sign and the large stone memorial. However the source was dry and I didn’t see any fledgling Thames for its first 2km. But when I did find the first evidence of the clear, shallow water – I decided the only thing to do was to give my feet a refreshing, if somewhat chilly, foot bath in the Thames! The perfect end to a pretty good two days. The poles seem a great help, still getting hotspot on the ball of my right foot so will go and see chiropodist and see if there is something that can be done to alleviate that!
My Long Walk 2019 