DAC is away
This walk has lingered on the site for 12 years or so but never had an outing. Now is the time, here is the place...
Length: from 14.0 km to 30.0 km
Ascent/Descent: up to 330/288m
Net Walking Time: from 3 ¼ to 6 ¾ hours
Toughness: 3 out of 10 to 7 out of 10
Take the 9.08 Didcot Parkway train from
Paddington (Slough 9.24, Reading 9.53), arrives Goring & Streatley 10.05 (cut off 14 minutes by taking the 9.22 fast train and change at Reading [9.45/9.53]).
Sub 40-minutes return trains from Didcot Parkway are up to five an hour until
22.38, then they get slower.
Buy a Didcot Parkway Return!
Buses from the end of the walk to Didcot Parkway Station:
-
Wantage: X35 (hourly until late), X36 (half-hourly to 19.35), plus the X1 &
S9 (frequent until late) to Oxford Station;
-
Harwell: X34 (about hourly until 20.17), X35 (hourly until late);
-
Chilton: X34 (about hourly until 20.11).
I quote:
“This walk follows a section of the Ridgeway National Trail, along an open
grassy ridge with good views throughout. There are short, long, and very long
versions of this walk which follows Britains's oldest road dating back to Neolithic
times.
The very long version visits an ancient (pre Roman) hill fort.More recently, the Ridgeway has been used by 4 wheel drives (now limited
to Summer only in small sections), horses and mountain bikes. This means its
surface can be rutted after dry weather, and muddy after wet weather.”
Walk Options:
Short Finishes are shown into Chilton (pub) or Harwell (no pub).
There is also a Shortcut into Wantage.
Lunch: Picnic.
Tea: Several options in Wantage, The
Rose & Crown in Chilton, nothing
in Harwell; plus The Prince
of Wales (Greene King) opposite Didcot Parkway Station.
1 comment:
Paddington Station was in a fair amount of disarray as the relatively newly refurbished station roof was leaking in a million places, so much so that half the ticket machines were blocked off because of standing water around them. The next fastest train to Reading was awaiting a driver and the posted Oxford train was running just 5 cars, so was full and standing. Welcome to GWR-world!
At Goring & Streatley, just n=2 emerged from the train on what was forecast to be pretty wet to noon, then gradually improving and finishing in sunshine. That's not quite what happened though.
We indeed started in rain but that stopped after half an hour, although after a break some drizzle commenced and that, in a stop-start way, stayed with us for quite a while. The route starts with the ascent out of Streatley familiar from one of the Goring Circ walks, soon after reverse-walks a stretch of the Cholsey to Goring walk but then it's all new. The Wittenham Clumps (Didcot Circ) and what's left of Didcot Powerstation dominated the view from the ridge, once we had left the land of horse gallops and mildly rolling downs behind. The Lambourne Downs (I think) were visible in teh distance on the left.
The rain stopped some time before we reached a bench with views (the only one passed all day, just east of Cuckhamsley Hill): time for lunch. Just as we got up, a large dark cloud passed and then emptied ferocious amounts of rain, convincing us to wait out the cloud under some trees.
The landscape was getting a bit samey by now, all cereal fields and the odd oddly shaped plantation, but tighter valleys soon appeared and that pleased the eye. No walkers other than dog walkers, but several runners and plenty of cyclists were about though.
Where the route turns off the Ridgeway, not many views can indeed be had from the very large Letcombe Castle hillfort site due to trees blocking most of the valley, and neither from the descent along a tree-lined lane. There is a more westerly route laid out in a pub leaflet, which sounds potentially more rewarding (partly along permissive paths).
Raingear had been stored away by now (but later had a 10 minute cameo just before Wantage) and the rather brilliant Greyhound Inn in Letcombe Regis gave us an excuse for a well-deserved drink (at around quarter to 5 this) but the rest of the route to Wantage was a touch disappointing, as the (on the map) promising looking brook and meadows to the left were in fact hidden from view by a high fence. Dinner in Wantage rounded off a good day in very good company, followed by the X35 bus to Didcot Station, travelling underneath the ridge we had walked along.
The Ridgeway itself was quite easy to walk along, with far more grassy stretches than one feared and not very rutted at all. And apart from a few road crossings (one via an underpass), it was absolutely quiet and fairly removed from civilisation.
w=on-and-off-rain-some-heavy
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