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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 2 May 2015

Saturday Third Walk

New Walk:  Goring Circular via Hill Bottom, Woodcote and Cleeve

Length:  11.3 miles (or 16 miles if extended to Pangbourne)

Difficulty:  4 out of 10

Train:  Take the 9:53 First Great Western Oxford train from London Paddington to Goring & Streatley, arriving at 11:06 (if you miss this train, you can also take the 10:06 Penzance train and change onto the above train at Reading arriving 10:29/departing 10:53).  Return trains from Goring are at 12 and 42 past the hour until 20:42; then at 21:13 and 22:15 and are generally quicker if you change at Reading. If you extend the walk to Pangbourne the return trains are at 17 and 47 past the hour until 20:47; then there is a 21:18 (again quicker to change at Reading). Buy a day return to Goring & Streatley.

This is a brand new walk being taken on a test drive today.  It covers completely different territory from our other Goring Circular walk (SWC 17).  This picturesque walk encounters a beautiful mix of rolling Chiltern hills, forest trails and quiet country lanes.  At this time of year, there should be some nice flower displays in the woods.  After some refreshments in Goring, the walk can be extended by following the well-sign posted Thames Path from Goring to Pangbourne. You can also shorten the walk by catching the X40 bus in Woodcote to Reading (the bus runs hourly until late).   More information and the instructions for the walk can be found here.

The recommended lunch stop is the Sun Inn at Hill Bottom (0118 984 2260), located 5 miles into the walk.  Large groups should call from the station. A further 2.5 miles on, there are two pubs in Woodcote (the Red Lion and the Black Lion) which could serve as late lunch options or just a mid-afternoon watering hole.

The recommended tea stop is Pierreponts, a lovely cafe on the riverside in Goring.  It is open until 5:00 pm on Saturdays.  There are also a few pubs along the river in Goring.


Enjoy the walk!
T=swc.243

4 comments:

PeteB said...

I'll be doing the walk checking/amending the directions as I go. Any volunteers to help with this greatly appreciated.

Janet said...

I'll give it a go too Pete! On paper the instructions look great: I love a mixed narrative of landmarks and the occasional bearing thrown in. One thing which would be really helpful to rank amateurs like me would be if each paragraph were separately numbered (many a time you'll have heard the conversation... "Where are we now?" "Oh, we're at number 61"). See you Saturday!

Anonymous said...

I am hoping to come along and maybe able to do some walk checking.jfk

Marion said...

Train stops at Ealing Bdwy 10.04