Walk 12: Goring to Wallingford
16–07–2017
Stage 13 of the guide book — official distance 11.2km, our version 12.15km

We had originally planned to either pick up the slack of our previous walk, completing the riverbend to Richmond, or attack the gap from the other end by striking out once more from Chertsey. However, both of those would require positioning from Windsor, and that, it turns out, would throw us into the grim world of rail replacement buses.
Figuring that if we were going to take a bus, it should at least be necessary, we decided instead to press further west, and tackle our first section that would take us to a destination without a station. Thus we returned (by GWR from Slough to Goring) to Streatley, with an aim of making our way to Wallingford — but with the option of baling out at Cholsey (conveniently still on the rail line), should we find ourselves as out of shape as last weekend.









It turned out to be a deceptively warm day -mislead by the cloud cover, G ended up thoroughly burnt, and both of us found it slow going by midway. But having done so many London sections- and deluded ourselves that those were in the countryside- it was good to be somewhere genuinely rural, and sharing it with more geese than people.






What also kept us going — even through the long detour through Moulsford, which meant we weren’t even walking the Thames! — was G’s discovery on the ride over that Wallingford wasn’t so cut off after all. Although it had long lost its train station, that was so long ago that enthusiasts had now revived it as a heritage line, offering tourist services over the remaining couple of miles of track to Cholsey. With only one train an hour, and the last one around 4pm, we realised we were cutting it fine. Thus we abandoned our usual bridge to bridge rule: picked up our pace considerably, and left the riverbank at Lower Wharf.
That got us to the charming ‘station’ / museum / ticket office with barely ten minutes to spare — enough to pick up a snack, use the bathrooms and take a few snaps before boarding.






Service departed on time, with just a handful of passengers — we were seemingly the only ones actually using it to get to Cholsey, rather than travelling both ways simply for the experience. Had we not figured this, and the manual doors, out we would also have been transported back, but fortunately there’s a lot of activity required to change directions and we extracted ourselves in time.















And so closes our first year of what will now presumably be a multi-year project… I’m proud of how our map looks — but the numbers tell a less inspiring story! Relocating to Bristol could help with the push west to the source, although (revived historical routes aside) the lack of rail access will definitely slow us down. And I can’t imagine a daytrip to claim the sections near Heathrow any time soon. But fingers crossed we’ll wrap this one up before brexit :-)
Total km walked: 157
Official km walked: 117
Thames path km left: 171

