Following a number of weeks of what seemed like endless sunshine today’s walk from Slough was completed under near cloudy skies virtually the whole hike bar a brief sunny spell and light shower towards end of walk. For me, it made for rather pleasant walking conditions.
We met in a somewhat unusual starting at a supermarket car park on the edge of Slough which was a new meet point for both myself and probably everyone else today. Unsure of precise location, I ended up arriving over 30 minutes early which meant that there was time to popp into the supermarket for a cup of tea. Realising time was marching on; I finished the tea outside where the others, including our walk leader Paul were gathering in the car park. It’d been a while seen we had seen Paul so it was nice to catch up, he’d been busy checking out rollercoaster’s in America and walking up Scottish mountains in the dark these past few weeks!
The group got together, Paul did his introductory speech and we were off heading first towards the Jubilee River. This man made hydraulic channel was constructed around the turn of the century with the aim to help take any over flow from the River Thames and help alleviate flooding areas around the area of Maidenhead and Windsor. We continued towards Dorney Reach, a site utilised during the London 2012 Olympics. Unfortunately, we were unable to continue along our planned route due to a triathlon taking place which we meant we could not get to Dorney Lake. This did not cause too much alarm as we took a slight diversion without any fuss.
Before long we arrived at the Kitchen Garden at Dorney Court where we stopped for warm liquid refreshments and for most of us a slice of cake. This is a rather lovely place that includes a garden that is home to many plants as well as fresh food and other produce. At the back there are some unusual looking chickens and a slightly odd quote from Bette Midler regarding compost heap written onto a slate!
Fully refreshed we marched on past the pub in Dorney and over the common before we stopped to have our picnic lunches near Boveney Lock with Windsor Racecourse not far away. We saw a number of pleasure boats going past us and then turning round and heading straight back. I have to say, the passengers on board didn’t seem to be full of the joys of life. Mind you, they might have thought the same about us.
Lunch completed, we continued along the Thames Path, seeing the splendid Windsor Castle in full before we reached Eton where we had our third and final refreshment stop. This time the liquid intake for me was alcoholic. Yes, we had arrived at the pub. It was a pub that until this year I had only been once before but have subsequently now made three further visits this year with the group, including today. Moving on, I was quite surprised of all the slightly quirky and interesting shops along Eton High Street which one day I’ll have to pay a visit.
The walk was soon coming to its conclusion although not before we were greeted with a sharp shower. We are rushed to our back packs to get hold of our waterproof jackets. We avoided the worst of the rain for the journey home where there were some very heavy isolated showers to get through.