Introduction
On the August bank holiday weekend, I stayed with my parents and we did a bit of walking. Rather than do separate entries, I thought I might as well put it all on one page.
Thames Path: Abingdon to Oxford
First, in light rain, we looked for the abbey remains in Abingdon. There aren't any, but we walked through the park where they'd been. Incidentally, the abbey had diverted the flow of the river to benefit their mills; it used to go somewhere else. Abbeys around the area seemed to make a habit of that.
The actual path took us beyond the lock and across a weir bridge, then snaked in confusing directions through some kind of swamp. The rain picked up, so we had water on basically all sides plus above. It was interesting.
Eventually the rain paused and we ate lunch on a convenient bench beside a private school's boathouse.
The next part of the path went by farmland and planted trees.
Rain soon resumed, and we came to a railway bridge on which a long train of anonymous blue wagons had halted. The complete lack of names or information on the side looks kind of sinister, but I eventually discovered the reason. It's a rail branch that only goes to a BMW plant. Presumably putting a logo on the wagons would encourage people to steal the cars out of them.
The train pulled away again and we continued under another bridge with impressive Paddington Bear graffiti, and then to the lock at Iffley where we crossed over to take a look at the town. Oh, and it stopped raining properly this time.
We returned to the path, getting pretty close to Oxford now.
A line of college boathouses made clear that we'd got to Oxford.
We reached the station, and got a train back. Evidence suggested that it had also rained in Staines.
Oxford to Eynsham
No I've never heard of Eynsham either; it's actually the halfway point of a Thames Path section, with two advantages over walking the full section: first, unlike the actual end point it has regular buses, and second, we didn't really feel like a fourteen mile walk that day.
Along the first part of the path, there were absolutely zillions of cyclists. Not surprising, perhaps.
We reached Godstow Nunnery, which apparently was an abbey of somewhat ill repute. Only a chapel (?) remains, and it isn't in terribly good condition, but you can go inside.
The river did crazy S-bends for a bit which the path faithfully followed (we could have cheated by following a more direct farm track, but didn't) until it reached a lock, where Mum and Dad went to look at their new environmentally-friendly building with some kind of exhibition, and I stood outside in the (fairly brief) rain.
Further on, we had lunch sitting on a confusing but comfortable tangle of felled tree.
The rest of the path basically ran through pastureland for some distance to Eynsham.
Eynsham looks like a tiny town/village in the middle of nowhere, but actually has an impressive amount of what you could almost call industry.
On the other side of the town, there's more; another helium gas depot (Air Liquide this time). There's an industrial estate (some parts empty) where the old railway station used to be.
After that we went back to the pub in the market square for a drink before getting the bus back to Oxford.
Capital Ring: Richmond to Wimbledon Park
On Sunday afternoon Mum and I walked some of the Capital Ring. (Dad was taking pictures at carnival.)
We started at Richmond and walked to Wimbledon Park.
The rain didn't last too long, but I didn't find very much to photograph anyway. Still, it was a pleasant walk through Richmond Park and Wimbledon Common.
Wimbledon Common has a windmill in. There's a museum with small scale models of windmills from all over the country, and an unspecified modern wind turbine to the same scale which is rather less small. And you can climb up to what used to be the working part of the mill. (If all that doesn't appeal? The shop sells 'rare' Wombles soft toys for £8.)
Later, we saw people playing tennis in Wimbledon, which is a first for me (okay, I might have accidentally caught a glimpse of it on a TV at some point). I suspect the public tennis courts in Wimbledon Park are not actually where the tournament's played, but who knows.
We got the District Line from Wimbledon Park station, Mum to South Kensington where she was going to one of the Proms concerts, and me back to Richmond and then Staines.
My niece
On Monday morning, my brother and his wife came to visit with their baby.
After lunch we went for a short walk. Well, some of us walked. The baby got pushed.
Staines Tinware Mfg. Co. Ltd. (as per sign; probably the business was actually called something else of late) closed a few years back; thanks to the recession it hasn't yet been turned into a whole estate of tiny, ugly houses.
