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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 28 October 2018

Sunday walk - Along and above the Thames Valley

Extra Walk 56 – Maidenhead to Marlow
Length: 15km (9.3 miles). Toughness: 3/10

09:45Reading train fromPaddington (Ealing Broadway 09:53) arriving Maidenhead at 10:31.

Return trains from Marlow to Paddington, changing at Maidenhead, are at xx:09 (journey time 1 hour 16 minutes). Buy an off-peak day return to Marlow.

Well, you’ve enjoyed an extra hour in bed this morning, after the clocks went back last night, so a fairly early start seems a good idea today. Remember that dusk will fall an hour earlier too, so take care you don’t get caught in the dark, though there shouldn’t be much risk of that today.

After following a pretty stretch of the Thames Path as far as Cookham, the route climbs onto an escarpment with fine views of the Thames Valley, before descending to Marlow.

There are several pubs in Cookham where lunch can be taken, but they are likely to be busy, so do ring ahead to book a table when you know how many of you want to eat there. There are plenty of tea places in Marlow. Details of the lunch and tea options can be found on the walk’s introduction page. Then click through to the Comments page to find some useful comments from a group who did the walk very recently.

If you judge that there is enough light remaining when you reach Marlow (it should last till about 5:15pm), you could extend the walk by 3.5 miles by walking back along the river to Bourne End, using the route described in the walk directions.

You will need to download the Walk Directions .

T=swc.56

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I am hoping to come on this walk, but I am interested in doing the alternative along the river into Marlow. Anyone else thinking of this too?

~Karen

Anonymous said...

n=6 altogether on this walk, with four coming off the train, and two, having forgotten about the time change, arriving early, and doing their own walk up to Bourne End. w=glorious-sun-but-cold all day. The walk had a little bit of cultural tour going on, with one walker giving historical tidbits along the way. Only one ate at the pub, which apparently was quite busy, whilst the others ate in the churchyard before going off on a Medieval graffiti hunt in the church (there wasn't any, sadly). After lunch, there was a unanimous decision to do the alternative along the river to Marlow, rather than the ridge.

The journey back was disrupted by issues on the line between Maindenhead and Paddington. A couple of trains had been cancelled from Marlow, which left a frustrated crowd at the station trying to sort out travel with the info box. Overall, though, we did quite well with the disruption, as in, it could have been much much worse. All four ended up boarding the train at 17:17 in Maidenhead and back in time for tea!