Goring and Mapledurham

Today I did my last preparatory walk for my planned Chiltern Chain Walk. It was about 12-miles long, from Goring-on-Thames mainly through woods to Mapledurham, then bacj to Goring along the Thames. It was the reveres of a walk I did a few months ago.

It was a nice day, though there was a heavy shower just before I got to Goring for the start of the walk. The first part of the walk followed a bit of the Chiltern Way, as far as Great Chalk Wood (I once got completely lost here, and I managed to miss another turning here today!). Most of the rest of the way to Mapledurham was through woods, which was very pleasant though I saw less in the way of wildflowers and animals than I have on my last few walks.

I had a quick wander in and out of Mapledurham, then followed the bridleway parallel to the Thames through Whitchurch-on-Thames and then back to Goring. There was a very nice stretch between Whitchurch and Goring through a wood beside the river, where I saw several Yew trees. Not far from Goring I saw a Grey Wagtail beside the river, close to a nesting Great Crested Grebe.

This was my third walk in four days. Although I’ve only been doing 11-12 miles, my legs are getting quite sore by the end of the walks. I’m not fit, and I think I’m still suffering the after-effects of some recent minor ailments.

Hopefully I’ll be starting the Chiltern Chain Walk properly soon, and writing up a journal for it to put on my web page (seems so long since I last wrote a journal!). Unfortunately, the weather forecast doesn’t look very good for the next few days, and I’ve got something on on Tuesday, so at the moment it looks like it may be Wednesday before my next walk.

This entry was posted on 17/04/2008 at 08:37 pm and is filed under Uncategorised. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.