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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.

Sunday 21 May 2017

I wanna go to Cholsey (sorry Elvis Costello!)

Download walk 242 Cholsey to Goring via Wallingford and South Stoke

Distance 20.5km (12.7m) toughness 4/10.

Trains; 09.48 London Paddington (Ealing Broadway 09.56) to Cholsey 11.04.
If you miss this train catch the 10.00 fast train to Reading and pick up the above slow train there at 10.46.

Return trains from Goring to London Paddington on the hour or 1 min past the hour. Buy a day return to Cholsey.


This is a companion walk to the Cholsey to Goring walk SWC 49 but takes a completely different route. It starts with a 2km stretch through the village of Cholsey to reach the riverside Thames path where you turn left and continue all the way to the bustling market town of Wallingford and your riverside lunch-time pub the Boat House.
After lunch you leave the river Thames and take paths around and across fields in the gently rolling Oxfordshire countryside with some fine and expansive views before visiting the attractive village of South Stoke and some refreshments at the Perch and Pike pub.(Note: this pub is open during the afternoon on Sundays but probably will not be serving meals after 2.30pm so you are advised to eat at Wallingford and have some snacks for the long afternoon leg of the walk.)
From South Stoke the short, last leg of the walk is along the Ridgeway and Thames Path to Goring where if you arrive before 5pm tea and cakes at the village cafe. (Pierreponts is closed on a Sunday.) Otherwise there are some excellent pubs in the village or you can rest by the river and enjoy the views before a short walk to the station.
You can lengthen the walk by 4.5 miles by taking the delightful Thames path from Goring  to Pangbourne.t=swc.242
The pdf with further walk details and full instructions can be found here

1 comment:

David Colver said...

Cholsey to Goring via Wallingford and South Stoke,
Sun 21 May

n=7 on this walk, with one shooting off at the start never to be seen again. w=Sunny_all_day.

As we entered Wallingford, there were four individuals on Vespa scooters disturbing the Sunday calm of the attractive town centre merely by driving along. Most motor mowers have sweeter sounding engines. It turned out that the quartet were heading towards The Boat House, our appointed lunch stop. When we arrived there may well have been a hundred Italian scooters, mainly Vespas but some Piaggios and other brands, neatly parked in rows. Many had fancy custom paint work. We were momentarily fearful that the place would be too packed out by rooters for scooters to house us, but got a table by the river and were served quickly enough with typical chain pub food.

Refreshment at at the Perch and Pike pub in South Stoke consisted of tea and beer. No cake. 3 got the 1701 train back with others lingering in various watering holes within Goring.

This walk is striking for its variety. It has flat bits besides the river; hills not beside any river; small towns; villages; fields with shoulder high rape and some poppies; other large fields with prodigious quantities of broad beans; woods; hedged-in tracks; more kites than I have seen on any other walk; and not a single stile.