Introduction.

forecast for today was heavy showers; I was worried that we would have to postpone today’s excursion too as Cat had previously sworn that she wouldn’t walk in rain. Despite a brief but worrying torrential downpour as we arrived at our meeting point in the car park in the centre of Watlington, she arrived ready and raring to go. Her enthusiasm seems to have increased with each section of trail. Jus has said this is simply because it’s got warmer, so today’s rain would be a real test of Cat’s willpower!

As well as a change in the weather, today would see a real change in the scenery as we moved into the second half of the trail. As we crossed the Thames we would leave the bare Wessex Downs for my own stomping grounds of the heavily wooded (and more populated) Chilterns.

Streatley to Mongewell

We parked my car at exactly the same spot in Streatley where we finished last time. We had tried to get Mark to turn up to see us off – or even to walk this section with us – to give a pleasing symmetry with the previous trip. Churlishly he refused, and it was just the four of us that headed down the road towards the Thames. For a couple of hundred metres we joined another National Trail, the Thames Path, which also crosses the river here.

We stopped for a while on the bridge to take in the scenery and congratulate ourselves on reaching the midpoint of the Ridgeway. This was truly a classic Thames scene. Downstream the river wound round a wooded corner and to a weir; upstream a charming little hotel on the riverbank had narrowboats moored outside. Moving on we discovered that there was a further bridge; the Thames here split in twain to flow around an island. The straightened western channel was host to a further weir and a lock.

Our arrival in Goring was a visual treat after three long days on the crest of the bare and empty Wessex Downs. The road curved away from the river between gorgeous old red brick buildings that seemed to glow even in what was rather weak and feeble sunlight. Cat went off to buy herself a cigarette lighter (she seems to lose or forget them on a regular basis) whilst the rest of us hung about on a street corner trying not to look like hoodlums. We failed in this fairly basic aim thanks to Jim. He suddenly remembered that he had a steel on him, and proceeded to use it in a “Me man. Me make fire” style that put Ray Mears to shame. Within seconds he had lit a piece of paper and, with gleaming eyes, nearly torched himself and Jus in the process (in light of previous experience of Jim’s apparent pyromania, I had wisely removed myself from the immediate vicinity). By the time Cat returned with her inconsequential flame source we had stamped out Jim’s minor inferno (I was mildly disappointed that I didn’t get to stamp out Justin) and were able to proceed along the trail.

From Goring the Ridgeway heads north along the Thames for a few miles, oddly on the opposite side to the Thames Path. We followed a rising path around the edge of more modern housing and flats until we were a surprising distance above the river. However, the path was well fenced in and we only got rare glimpses of water. Emerging onto a road, we followed the Ridgeway signs down what looked like a private drive and eventually left Goring, squeezed between the river and Brunel’s Great Western Railway. An angry pulse of rain followed by hot sunshine had us removing waterproofs almost before we’d finished putting them on!

It’s always amazed me that, in the hydrological family, the lower Thames is a mere toddler. The Chilterns and Wessex Downs used to form a continuous ridge with the Thames flowing northeast from Oxford and draining into The Wash. However, the ice sheet in the last ice age denied the Thames its usual egress and it angrily punched its way through the chalk downs and created a new channel to London. The so-called “Goring Gap” is a narrow valley by Thames standards, but from the Ridgeway it’s a struggle to notice the shallow gradients either side. Perhaps the most obvious sign is how close the river, railway and road come together here – in times past the Gap offered an easy way through the hills.

The Ridgeway soon veers away from the river towards the village of South Stoke. Almost as pretty as Goring, and all the better for being set slightly off of the main road, it offered most things you’d want from a village – a pub (the Perch & Pike), a school, and a pretty towered church. Oddly, given that it was a decent-sized village, there was no sign of a post office or village shop. Or people, for that matter. Apart from the trains, thundering by in the background with frightening regularity, there was not a sound in the whole village. It felt like we were about 15 minutes into a 1960’s science fiction B-movie.

Perhaps the good South Stokians had foreseen the approaching weather. As we headed back towards the Thames on a rough track from northern end of the village, the heavens opened. Even the dense tree cover could not protect us, and we quickly struggled into waterproofs. This time we wore them all the way down to the river before the sun came out and we had to take them off again. Here we found a bench overlooking an idyllic Thames scene and – a rarity on the Thames – a public slipway.

The trail ran closely along the edge of the Thames for some distance, feeling far more like the Thames Path than the Ridgeway. Ironically, the Thames Path (on the other bank) is forced inland away from the river for some distance here. On the river I was delighted to see a Great Crested Grebe diving for food, always reappearing where we least expected. To our right was a scrubby “setaside” field, growing thistles and stinging nettles in return for a handsome EU subsidy. On the opposite bank, amidst the expensive riverside houses, the private school in Moulsford sported what seemed to be the largest shed I’ve ever seen. We met another couple of walkers who warned that beyond the railway bridge there was a dangerous pothole.

We passed beneath Brunel’s Great Western Railway bridge. Jim, with his engineering expertise, was most impressed by this bridge built “on the skew” and took lots of photos. The rest of us just admired the pretty patterns in the brick and looked for the pothole. The other walkers hadn’t been kidding. It was a well-hidden boot-sized gap dropping through concrete into the river below. An unwary and unlucky hiker could easily break a leg here.

We continued along the riverbank until we reached a point where – I assume – the old towpath switched to the other side of the river. At any rate, from here on the Thames Path returned to the far bank whilst the Ridgeway veered slightly inland around a car park. From here on we were disappointed to find that we could only catch the most occasional glimpses of the river.

Our disappointment at losing the river was tempered when we discovered a dog lost within crops. At first his presence was only indicated by a moving line of rustling wheat. Then... surprise! the dog launched himself vertically completely clear of the wheat in an attempt to see where his master (walking along the Ridgeway) could have gone. This “up periscope” tactic clearly didn’t work, for despite using it several times the line of waving wheat moved ever further away from the path.

We enjoyed a brief break on a bench next to the very pretty church in North Stoke, but quickly moved on as the clouds once more became ominous. It was a quick stroll through a golf course to reach the untidy cluster of former college buildings at Mongewell. This was a significant point on our journey; the trail finally turned its back on the Thames and started a long slow ascent into the Chilterns. Initially it was awful; the trail ran alongside the A4130 and the noise and smell of the road where awful after the tranquil Thames. After dicing with death crossing the A4074 we left the roads behind. Our brief dalliance with the civilisation of the Thames valley was over, and we could return to quiet contemplation of the Ridgeway.

Mongewell to Watlington

From the map the next part of the trail appeared rather dull, running straight as a very straight thing for about 3 miles. A closer examination of the map revealed why – we would be walking on an Iron Age boundary embankment, Grim’s Ditch. Initially insignificant, this soon gained in prominence, with its size exacerbated by ditches to either side. With their usual disregard for historic monuments, the Ordnance Survey had plonked a trig point on top of it, which Jim climbed in his inimitable manner. We managed to take the first ever picture of Jim on the Ridgeway (up until now he’s been strangely reluctant to appear in pictures), thus finally proving he had actually walked it.

We became slightly disconcerted at this point. We nodded a friendly greeting to an elderly couple in red anoraks, grey-haired and (probably only for the gent) grey-bearded. A couple of minutes later we met another, seemingly identical couple. The meeting was to be repeated a further four or five times in the next ten minutes. We’d either run into a convention of grey-haired red anorak-wearers, or there was just one couple who had a teleport and were deliberately using it to confuse us. We decided it was probably the latter.

The Ridgeway here was completely different to its previous incarnation of a broad track across the open crest of the Wessex Downs. Here we were forced to walk single file on a winding path through woodland. Cat & Jus loved it. However, as I live in the Chilterns, I found it all rather familiar. It was like just a Sunday afternoon stroll in the south-east; with no defining characteristics we had lost the sense of being on a National Trail.

The path began a long slow ascent to the village of Nuffield, with Grim’s Ditch getting ever deeper as we climbed. Halfway up we found a couple of logs facing each other and decided that it was the ideal spot to stop for lunch. As we emerged from the woods at the top of the hill we saw several red kites hovering above us, waiting for one of us to die so they could pick our corpse clean. These formerly rare birds were reintroduced to the Chiltern nearly 20 years ago, and have since spread like wildfire. My wife’s mum & dad are keen ornithologists, and love seeing them when they visit us. As a resident of the Chilterns I see the birds regularly, but must admit that their russet plumage and forked tails still fill me with joy – not least because it’s one of the few birds I can recognise in flight! Far beyond the kites we caught our last glimpse of Didcot power station, the views of which had dominated our previous day on the trail.

We saw little of Nuffield – by the pretty little church we turned left through a hard-to-spot turning and across a golf course. Strangely the trail went straight across fairways rather than round the edge. We hesitated for a moment, but smiling golfers waved us on. We emerged nervously from the course through a narrow gap between houses and down a seemingly private driveway where we felt we had no right to be. The National Trail markers confirm that this is the correct route, but it does seem rather harsh on the householders.

Crossing a main road, we slid our way down a woodland path on the other side, passing other walkers in the process. As we emerged into a field at the bottom, we were hit by another heavy and squally shower. With other walkers close behind, we were keen to display true long-distance walker grit and determination. Pulling on our waterproofs (apart from Cat, who obviously wanted to get catch hypothermia) we headed out into the maelstrom while the other walkers hesitated under the trees.

Bent double into the rain and wind we made slow progress across the cloying track. On the far side of the field we shared the semi shelter of a small copse with some muddied cyclists before plunging on into one of the biggest fields I’ve had the misfortune to walk across. A gentle but long and sticky slope sapped our energy, and with our left side being given a thorough hosing-down by the storm we made slow progress. As soon as we made it into shelter at the top of the field, the sun came out and we had to stop once again to strip off. Shortly after, we had to pause for one of Cat’s regular look-there-are-some-horses-I-must feed-them stops.

The horses were no doubt owned by the residents of a grand house we passed shortly after. As we approached we were scared by one of the deepest, loudest and most threatening series of barks I’ve ever heard. As we passed the gates we expected to see a canine akin to a wolf; instead the barks were being emitted from a far-too-small dog. The house itself had a wonderfully over-the-top entrance, sparking the usual “nice little holiday home”-type comments.

After running round the edge of a couple of fields the Ridgeway descends into a wood with the implausible name of Jacob’s Tent. We found that there was an eerie, but acoustically perfect echo out of Colliers Bottom below. Our experimental shouts of “ECHO!” turned into echoing yelps as the path became steep and slippery. Jim and I emerged into a field chock-full of sheep at the bottom at a barely controlled gallop, with Cat not far behind. Justin took the slope at a rather more circumspect pace and emerged some minutes later, blaming poor traction on his worn-out boots.

After all this excitement we needed a bit of a rest and a drink – the chapel of St Botolph’s at Swyncombe House was the ideal place, and once again we had cause to thank the good people who install benches in churchyards, a panacea for the weary hiker. According to the National Trail guidebook, this chapel featured something rather special – a modern stained glass window with a picture of a Spitfire. We did find it, eventually (it’s the window facing you as you enter the churchyard from the Ridgeway), and were rather underwhelmed – as is often the way with church windows, it was very hard to see the design from the outside.

The church porch was open, with a couple of benches inside. We commented on how useful a rest place it would have been if it were raining. This is the sort of comment that is frankly just asking for it. Barely five minutes on from St Botolphs the heavens once again opened, drenching both us and a large contingent of red kites above. This rain persisted for the next mile-and-a-half, our companionable saunter degrading swiftly into a silent, heads-down trudge. Jus seemed especially unhappy and lagged far behind.

After a long and wet, but gentle descent, we turned sharp right at North Farm where the rained abruptly ceased and we rejoined the Ridgeway. “What?” I hear you cry. “Haven’t you been walking on the Ridgeway all day you silly man?”. Well, we had been following the National Trail signs, but as I intimated earlier, it hadn’t until now felt like the Ridgeway. However, this new section was the same style of wide track we’d grown used to over the first three days walking. We were back in business! One thing was different though – the Ridgeway would for the next eight miles (well into our next day’s walking) run along the base rather than the crest of the hills. Looking at the maps we could see no good reason for this betrayal of the trail’s raison d’être.

A short way along the trail were a couple of travellers’ caravans. I was glad that this much-maligned section of the community had found a non-controversial place to rest, but disappointed to see so much litter around their home. I hoped they would clear it up before they left, but feared that this would not be the case, and they would leave behind another reason for some people to hate them. Sometimes people really are their own worst enemies.

Returning to a “classic” Ridgeway style meant that the path was now open to another maligned section of society – the 4x4 driver. As we had now passed the 1st of many vehicles were free to use the Ridgeway, which for us walkers meant that the trail had in places already turned into deeply rutted slurry. Jus and Cat could now understand why I’d been so insistent that we completed the first half of the Ridgeway (which is almost entirely open to 4x4’s) before May. Fortunately Oxfordshire County Council had followed Wiltshire’s example and provided alternative paths to bypass the worst affected sections.

We soon slipped and slithered our way across the B481, and after a further pleasant if muddy section of green lane we came to Watlington Hill Road where we left the Ridgeway for today and headed back into Watlington. Whilst Jim and Jus headed off to sort out the cars, Cat and I struggled to find a table in Watlington’s two pubs. It was the day of the Watlington Festival, which seemed to consist of the kids of the village playing rock music badly in a location that we never managed to find the entrance to. We eventually sat in a pub garden and prayed that it wouldn’t rain (fortunately the weather for once held off).

It had certainly been a more varied section today, with river walking, woods and pleasant little villages. It was a very dramatic change from the open downs of the first three days, and Cat especially had loved it – she was most eloquent on the merits of this section at the pub. For me it was a return to my native Chilterns, and as such I had found it rather mundane. I longed for the big skies and long views of the North Wessex Downs. Surprisingly it had been Jus rather than Cat that had suffered from the rain – she almost seemed to have relished braving the elements. Jim had as ever been the fit one, marching stoically in the lead throughout with little comment. Above all I guess today’s walk had proved that everyone is different – we’d all got a different experience out of the same walk. It would be interesting to see how each of us would cope with the next section, which from the map seemed like it could be the most taxing day on the whole trail.

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