Thames Path – Dorchester to Abingdon and then on to Oxford

The reason we sometimes don’t take the right turn (but mostly it’s that we’re not paying attention)

Walking a designated trail like the Thames Path lends itself to not thinking much about what we’ll do each day. We go to bed at night and know we’ll walk in the morning. We wake up each morning and know we’ll walk all day. It’s almost a luxury. No decisions to make as to what we’ll do, where we’ll go or how we’ll get there. No discussions or compromises necessary. The questions are all answered. Today, we walk.

Plants for sale … we passed this scene on the way back to the path in Dorchester.

Dorchester to Abingdon – 9 miles

We retraced our steps down the public footpath, across a field and finally re-joined the river path. The day was blustery once again and showers were frequent and drenching. We trudged on and the 9-mile walk to Abingdon seemed to take longer than usual, but finally the skies cleared, the sun came out and Abingdon town came into view.

The streets of Abingdon

The town seems to be a lively place and quite pleasant. Unfortunately, we’re usually tired from our walk and exploring wasn’t on our agenda. We had booked an Airbnb for the night which ended up being ¾ mile off the path and probably the tiniest room imaginable for two people. There was nary a place to put anything down without tripping over it. Managing to get around the bed, which was only only about 15” off the floor, required an acrobatic maneuver. The room was described as ‘cozy’, but cramped and claustrophobic was more like it. The view out the tiny window was into another room. Luckily, it was only one night and we looked forward to our morning departure. Abingdon, by the way, was the home of MG, those cute little British sports cars, from 1929 to 1980.

Despite our claustrophobic room for the night, we enjoyed the little we saw of Abingdon. Above, St. Nicholas Church in the center of town.

We walked 10.5 miles today.

Abingdon to Oxford – 9-1/2 miles

It rained all through the night and once again, we donned our rain gear before heading out on the path. David had forgotten his ball cap in last night’s dinner pub and we stopped in on the outside chance it was found and turned in. Surprise … surprise … the hat was sitting behind the bar just waiting for its owner to return. Heavy downpours alternated with periods of dry. We’re pleased to report that our rain gear is doing a good job of keeping us dry and comfortable.

Now what?

We were more than half way to Oxford when we ran into a roadblock … a major diversion with no indication of how/where to divert. We, therefore, ignored the sign and walked a little further where the sign and barrier became more insistent and a list of street names was provided for the diversion. Hmmm … our Thames Path map does not have street names and the phone had no service for this area for a Maps view. By using the Thames Path app, we were able to figure out generally which roads to take and the bonus was finding a tea room along the 1.5 mile out-of-the-way detour.

We deserved a cup of tea after climbing from the riverbank up three flights of steep metal stairs over the railroad tracks.

Back on the path, we met a fellow collecting bright blue berries which we’d seen several times along our route, but couldn’t identify. Though I heartily discouraged his behavior, David had sampled one of these berries earlier up the path and spit it out … very bitter (but he didn’t die or go into anaphylactic shock as I had forewarned). The fellow explained these were sloe berries from the blackthorn tree, used to make sloe gin.

Sloe gin fizz, anyone?

After walking along a traffic-busy road, cutting through alleys, under a railroad bridge and along various public footpaths, we finally made our way back to the path only to find another diversion. This one we totally ignored and found that the reason for the path closure was for path maintenance and minor improvements, none of which impeded our walking. Since no one happened to be working on the path, we didn’t impede the work-in-progress either.

Approaching Oxford and looking forward to a little exploring here

Our digs for the next two nights was an Airbnb with Tim and Clare as our hosts. What a contrast to Abingdon! A spacious room, lots of amenities and gracious hosts. Tim recommended The Punter pub for dinner, a 10 minute walk away from the house. We enjoyed it so much, we had dinner there two nights in a row.

We were quite pleased to reach Oxford. It portends to be a splendid city and we plan to take a day off from the path to explore it. That means, of course, there’ll be decisions to be made. Where to go? What to see in our limited time? Join us next time to see what we could see.

Today we walked 12.8 miles - 53 miles to go on the Thames Path