Day 5: Tadpole Bridge to Bablock Hythe

Thursday 30 June 2022

Back to The Trout at Tadpole Bridge, ready to get walking again after Susan's recent Covid, it had left her rather weary so we attempted to take it at a steady pace.

The river was looking beautiful, we passed several boats and we were looking forward to the day ahead through the meadows and fields of Oxfordshire.

It was very peaceful and we saw a few fishermen on the banks as we headed into Chimney Meadows.

Chimney Meadows was once a commercial farm and has been managed and protected since 2003 by the BBOWT, the Berks, Bucks & Oxon Wildlife Trust, it covers 620 acres.

Previously densely packed arable fields are now species-rich wildflower meadows with grazed pastures providing habitats for wading birds and wildfowl. In this area of the Upper Thames, there are still flood plain meadows and wet grasslands, and these are being protected.

Late June and the edgeways of the pathways are getting very overgrown and wild, nettles everywhere so it's still trousers and walking boots terrain... and antihistamines!

We followed the river as it meandered through the meadows and noticed the grey rain clouds following us ... we met just 3 dog walkers along the way and a fellow walker but that was it, no noise, no roads, just bird noise and peaceful countryside today.

We came across this amazing tree that we awarded "Tree of the Day", a huge Ash tree with a stunning trunk and branches.

And around the next corner the Thames was full of geese and ducks plus a few swans.

It was all very open around this section, walking through grasses as though we were on the great plains, after a while it made your eyes go funny watching your feet and endless golden grasses.

We finally spotted our first poppies in this field of wheat

Tummies were starting to rumble for lunch, luckily we arrived at Newbridge where we stopped for lunch, there are two pubs either side of the bridge The Maybush and the Rose Revived.  

It's a 13th century bridge that carries the Abingdon - Witney road over the River Thames.  It is one of the two oldest surviving bridges on the Thames, built of Tayton stone. 

It was built by monks on the order of King John in order to connect the wool towns in the South of England with the farms in the Cotswolds.

Above is the Maybush pub and below hidden behind the weeping willows is the Rose Revived.

We ate at Rose Revived, it was getting a bit greyer and windier so we sat inside.  It has been beautifully renovated, but that was the best bit, sadly the service and food really let it down, so we left without puddings, coffee or hot chocolates, very disappointing.

We had walked just over 6 miles and had covered 15,042 steps.

Good to see that it marked the 40 miles we have walked from The Source. Yay!

I did like this map though, that I found on the wall of the loo, Newbridge is the yellow area on the left, and we can see that next time we need to walk on towards Wytham and it's woodland before dropping down into Oxford.

From here we were in the Goose Lands, endless fields of geese poo basically 😝

We came upon Northmoor Lock, built in 1896, looking beautiful with it's roses and hollyhocks.

From here the heavens finally opened, they waited until we were quite literally in open fields with no cover, it was just us and sheep!

Our waterproofs became non-waterproof and our clothes began to get soaked through, I didn't get many photos after this as I had to hide my camera away so it didn't get soaked.

The book had told us we were literally at our end point, but we couldn't see or hear any road, nor see Graham and the little red Mini.

Susan finally said she couldn't think of anything funny to say anymore ... we tried a bit of 'Singing in the Rain' and I kept repeating, we're nearly there ...... gate after gate, field after field ... a huge heron flew down and landed on our path and looked at us strangely ...the sheep had run from all directions to the centre of the field to hide under a small bush.

And there we were just getting absolutely drenched ...

Finally we saw the headlights of the Mini and Graham managed to get a photo or two of us ambling towards him.  I had messaged him earlier to say please bring towels, Susan laughed that he'd probably bring a flannel, and I was really hoping for a big fluffy bath towel, but what we got was a small hand towel each!

Our finish point was The Ferrymans Inn at Bablock Hythe and we had managed 10.2 miles in total, 25,356 steps.  What a walk .....

Our little section today ...

Will we make it to Oxford later this week? Tune in to find out!