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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Saturday 28 November 2015

Saturday Second Walk - Nearly new Goring walk

SWC Walk 243 - Goring Circular via Hill Bottom
Length: 18km (11.3 miles)
Toughness: 4 out of 10

9.20 train from Paddington (9.29 Ealing Broadway) to Goring & Streatley, arriving 10.36

For walk directions click here.

It is hard to keep up with all the new walks these days. This one had its SWC debut in May, but it passed under my radar and perhaps under yours too.

It explores completely different territory from the original Goring Circular, passing through gently hilly territory just to the north of Book 1, walk 4 Pangborne Circular. The walk description promises "beautiful rolling Chilterns countryside, forest trails and quiet country lanes".

There are a choice of earlier and later pub options - three in all - so cross fingers we can squeeze into one or other of them. Though it is a longish outing for a shorter winter's day, we seem to whizz through walks these days and you are getting quite an early start. (Bring a torch just in case, though.) An incentive to get a move on is the chance to get to the lovely Pierrepoints Cafe in Goring before its 5pm close. If not, other hostelries are available.

Trains back from Goring are at 12 and 42 past and take 1 hour 20 minutes. You can in theory shave 15 minutes off this on the 12 past train by changing to a fast London service at Reading.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

There is no Hammersmith and City or Circle eastwards from Edgware Road this weekend, and no District or Circle south from it either. So the only way to Paddington from these directions will be the Bakerloo

Anonymous said...

Yes I hope to do this walk.As stated in walk details the lunch options are very simple but good.jfk

Ian T said...

The planned train was cancelled due to an alert at Paddington. The n=6 who showed up at Goring 40 mins late were mostly Ealing Broadway starters. Maybe Paddington non-starters came up with a plan B. w=mostly-dry-occasional-light-rain-a-bit-blowy Four raced off and were not seen again. That left 2 more leisurely walkers. Going was slow thanks to a liberal but shallow coating of slippery mud. And directions through Gt Chalk Wood still managed to confuse. We made it to the Sun by two. After lunch we two did a wicked thing. We disobeyed instructions and switched to the last half of the Pangbourne Circular. For one this led to a quick finish in Pangbourne. For the other, a trip along the river back to Goring.

Walker said...

Correction to last post. N=19 Yes, NINETEEN! It takes more than a fire alert causing a complete evacuation of Paddington to put us off, Ian T!!! After a half a hour delay in the lovely sunshine the specified train finally left but skipped stops to Slough to make up time. 12 of us started at Goring. Of the six on the Ealing Broadway train, "the four who rushed off" caught up with us mid morning and we added another walker briefly who had come by car.

A pleasant walk, all agreed. Despite some mud, plenty of tracks and lanes made it a good walk for winter. Gentle gradients, some nice views, woods. Directions OK but could be improved by adding more distances. Weather w=grey-but-quite-mild-with-showers-and-some-bright-flashes. Most of us pushed on to the last possible lunch pub, the Red Lion, arriving there 2pm. This is not gastro as the walk directions would have it but served nice food reasonably fast.

We made it to Goring as the light was fading and some even made it to Pierrepoints tea room. Others explored the pubs. Some did both.

Ian T said...

:(

PeteB said...

Thanks to Ian T for the comments in his e-mail to me and to Walker for his points in the post below. I'll add this to my Spring/Summer 2016 to do list