Rural Thames Path section 2: Chertsey to Maidenhead (12th Sept 2013)

This morning I woke up with a slight hangover and feeling very tired after a restless five hours of sleep! Just what you need before embarking on a 21 mile hike after doing 18 the day before! 

Blessedly, the trains behaved and I got to Chertsey in plenty of time. After plodding back through Chertsey and hitting the Thames, passing Laleham on the way, all of a sudden we're in Staines! This is where I realised my tracker wasn't functioning as it should and hadn't recorded anything from Chertsey! I have a fiddle with the phone, get the tracker from MapMyWalk on and then its, as ever. onwards! However, I just know that today is going to be a long, hard slog...

Swan sculpture at Staines

The Old Town Hall

The Swan

Staines Bridge

As we go through Staines, we cross the bridge and head on up an uneventful path, past the Runnymede-on-Thames Hotel and Bell Weir lock.I have to say, the number of houses on the riverside is awesome, and they come in all shapes and sides!

Coal post (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal-tax_post)

Bell Weir lock

Willow

We come into Runnymede, famous for the Magna Carta and cross a huge park before glimpsing the Magna Carta memorial up on the hillside. It would be too much of a detour for today to go and see it closer, as I am determined to spend a little time in Windsor, our next point to reach on this day's hike.

Heathrow is nearby(!)

Magna Carta memorial

We head past the Lutyens gatehouses and enter Old Windsor. The path continues with properties on both sides, then we have to turn away from the river and head on up to a busy road. After a short while, we head back down a slope and under Albert Bridge. Soon we hit the pretty village of Datchet and then follow the road all the way into Windsor, with its lovely castle and not-so-lovely tourists!

Old Windsor Lock

Victoria Bridge

First glimpse of Windsor Castle

Had a drink at the railway station

George V memorial

Victoria

Queen steam train

The castle though is magnificent and I spend a few minutes taking some photos and admiring the architecture. The tourists do begin to piss me off though! So it's time to leave and push on to my hotel for the evening in Maidenhead.

We pass the Royal Windsor Racecourse on the other side of the Thames, catching glimpses of stands and fences. My feet are starting to ache and my thighs are chafing. But I plod on manfully towards Bray and Maidenhead. Bray is a delightful village with a HUGE traffic problem! I wish I could eat at Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck restaurant, but I don't think Heston would appreciate dusty, muddy, smelly old me! Oh, mustn't forget, but you couldn't blame me, for you can see not a lot of it, we passed Eton Dorney before reaching Bray.

Royal Windsor Racecourse

Church of St James

Eton Dorney, where they did the rowing at the Olympics

Bridge over to Bray

The Fat Duck

From Bray, I come off the Thames Path and head straight on the main road to Maidenhead and my hotel for the evening. As I'm walking, I start thinking, do I have to be strictly faithful to the Thames Path, or should I be looking to the long term, to the End2End I'm trying to complete, rather than meandering around the country? Something to think about in the next couple of weeks.

Anyroad, the hotel is a bit rubbish, but you gets what youse pays for I guess. However, the restaurant attached, The Flavours of Asia, served up a cracking meal with a couple of Cobras! Luvverley! 

From Worcester Park to Kingston, then to Chertsey via the Thames Path! (Sept 11th 2013)

Finally the day has come and I can get back out into the open air once more! I catch a train up to Stoneleigh, but for some reason the train conductor said I wouldn't be able to get off there and so I end up getting off at Worcester Park.

I forget about the Thamesdown Link (which was horrible anyway!) and hit the tarmac to Kingston upon Thames, my birth-town and the place where I will meet the Thames Path. I'm in such a hurry to get there I take the round turn at New Malden and end up going the long way round to Kingston! Ugh! 

Finally get to Kingston Bridge, cross over and under, and we are already in the countryside it seems! 

Kingston Bridge

Swans by the Thames

We'll be seeing a lot of these as we go! 

A couple of miles trekking later, we past the walls of Bushy Park and then the gates of Hampton Court, a palace that I remember visiting a lot as a child. Take some pictures and revel in its glory, and then I cross over Hampton Court Bridge, and down to Molesey Lock. This will be the first of many weirs and locks I'll be passing on this walk, as the Thames is not tidal after Teddington lock. Molesey lock is quaint and well kept, with flowers everywhere! 

Gates at Bushy Park

Ornate decoration

Hampton Court Bridge

Arty farty pic of Hampton Court Palace

The signage for the Thames Path (among others...)

Molesey lock

After Molesey, there's a slight claustrophobia as we get hemmed in by reservoir walls and tree-lined banks and eventually we come to Sunbury lock.

Sunbury Lock

After Sunbury lock, we carry on to Walton-on-Thames with its ugly spanking new bridge and its older sibling close by. The new bridge is an absolute eyesore in my opinion, so much so I didn't even take a picture of it! There's a temporary diversion in place and we walk around and then carry on along the towpath until we reach a bell hanging on one of the barriers. This bell calls the ferry over for the Shepperton to Weybridge route. A short but pleasant cruise affords me a few minutes rest and then its onwards to Chertsey, the endpoint of today's walk.

On the ferry! 

Waiting for the ferry

Shepperton Lock

Past Shepperton lock, we see some very colourful riverside moorings near a water meadow scene, our first of the trail. Cross Durnsey Meadow and over the Chertsey Bridge to get to the station (which was 1.5 miles off the trail!) 

Chertsey Bridge

Statue in Chertsey

What followed was a nightmare journey back to my sister's where I was going to be staying for the evening, a journey that reaffirmed my determination NEVER to be a commuter ever again.

Planning for the Thames Walk!

Finally, after a long summer, I can start making plans for starting the Thames Walk and progressing this End2End I'm undertaking. The next stage will take me from West Ewell to Kingston upon Thames on the last part of the Thamesdown Link, then onwards on the Thames Walk's rural section all the way to Oxford. I'm hoping to do this in four to five days, stopping at Maidenhead, Henley-on-Thames, Reading and Abingdon before returning home from Oxford.

It'll be the longest I've been away from the family, but with all the modern conveniences like mobile phones, PCs and Macs, at least we'll be able to converse in the evenings, providing I can secure a good wi-fi spot! I will also endeavour to update the blog as I go along, but this will depend on how well I can connect via the iPhone...

Exciting times ahead!