Day 1: The Source to Ashton Keynes

 Monday 9 May 2022

Today was the start of our Thames Path walk from The Source in Gloucestershire to The Thames Barrier in London

She's Susan, I'm Emily

Early 50s, peri, busy, knackered, emotional, forgetful, flushed and foggy brained, what we needed was a challenge; fresh air, marching, chatting, pubs and cake, and a trip preferably with no inclines!

So .... The Thames Path here we come, all 184 miles of you.

No set targets, just ramble until we're done (in).

Retired husband is now 'Thames Walk Chauffeur' and seems to find it all very funny.

He dropped us off near the village of Kemble, where we had to cross a few fields and roads to reach that big pile of rocks above, apparently it's a Spring and is found located under an ancient ash tree.

The first stages of this walk show dry river beds and no sign of a flowing River Thames yet, just lots of dandelions.

Dora the Explorer (thanks G) is here in suitable walking attire for May.  As we've had no rain for so long and the route is flat, we went for trainers as opposed to walking boots with long trousers as we'd heard there were lots of nettles in these early parts and white linen shirts seemed to be the uniform.  

I felt the part with my new useful map bag and I don't know if Susan was joking when she said she'd packed a whistle ... as a former nurse I am expecting her rucsac to contain everything we could possibly need.

We soon found ourselves in lovely woodland amongst wild garlic, bluebells and cow parsley, still no water.

Thanks to Susan's plant identifier app on her phone we discovered garlic mustard in abundance.

Through some fields and down some lanes of the village of Ewen, we didn't pass a soul.

Never seen a sign like the one below before; "Quiet Lane" .... if there was ever a sign to tell us two we were on the wrong one, this was it!  But we soon corrected ourselves and remain hopeful that after a few days walking we won't be able to miss a huge river flowing to the side of us!

We finally made it to Somerford Keynes where we had noted that there was food available at The Bakers Arms between the hours of 12pm - 2:30pm, luckily we arrived at 1:15pm.

(this morning stretch is without loo and food, so seeing the pub was a good feeling)

We had walked 6.3 miles at this point, in a very leisurely 2 hours 45 minutes.

Somerford Keynes was a Wiltshire village for centuries but in 1897 it voted to be in Gloucestershire.

Having walked through all the wild garlic I had the wild garlic, artichoke and carrot soup, whilst Susan had Cotswold Brie and red onion chutney toastie.  And the needed carb boost of shared chips.

(Note the pub is closed on Tuesdays, and they don't have 'alternative' milks, "umm we've got semi-skimmed" ..... so no dairy-free hot choc for me)

This stunning tree in Somerford Keynes won our "Tree of the Day"

After lunch we made our way through the Cotswold Water Park, this certainly made up for not seeing much water before lunch, it covers a huge area, there are about 150 lakes that have been transformed from gravel pits.  A Trust manages it to protect wildlife, there are watersports available, a hotel, cottages and walking trails.

These little blue dragonflies were everywhere along our pathway, around our legs, moving so quick.  Or could it have been a damselfly?

Dragonfly or Damselfly?

We left the lakes and found ourselves alongside the river, so clear and shallow, it was beautiful.

We were heading into Ashton Keynes our finish point for the day

We found a village shop and even better it was a village shop with a bench outside!  At this point we had started with the ... "how's your knees, how's your hip, are your feet alright"..

Which considering we'd done 22,636 steps it was OK to check these things.

It was 3:45pm, Susan chilled with a Cotswold strawberry ice cream whilst I just had coke, we sat opposite Old Father Thames as the school day ended and chatted to a lovely villager who told us that their village was not named after Milton Keynes, but it's pronounced Ashton Kaynz.

It had been a really fun, enjoyable first day of our adventure in such beautiful peaceful countryside.

Day One Completed - 10 miles