August 8 Thames Path : Marlow to Maidenhead

Hello, Mrs Hg137 here.

Marlow

For today, we had a plan to park the geocar at the end of the day’s walk, use public transport aka train to get back to the start, and walk back; much searching went on to find somewhere (anywhere) in Maidenhead that had free parking and was close to the river; Google’s Streetview was most useful here and we found a spot in Ray Park Road.

A fifteen minute walk brought us to Maidenhead station and the first cache of the day, one of the Sidetracked series which are hidden near stations.  On the train, we had a few minutes to sort out our walking boots and to chat to the many other walkers who were also on the train; one group of six were off on a two day outing, walking to Goring on the first day, then back along the river; we passed Goring some few weeks ago and it’s a long, long walk along the river, but not nearly so far if you cut off the big loops in the river.

Sidetracked geocache

Sidetracked geocache

Sidetracked geocache

After a twenty minute train ride we disembarked at Marlow, dawdling behind the other passengers so that we could retrieve our next cache, another Sidetracked, without being watched.   The Thames Path was a short walk away, and we walked down to the river, then stepped away almost immediately for a look at Marlow Lock.  This was a busy lock (they all are!) with neat gardens (they mostly are!), a fine view back to Marlow Bridge … and the answers to clues to a multi cache, another with a Dr Who theme, which we found just a little further on our way.   Once under the speeding cars on the A404M we were out in the country and it was a quiet, warm sunny morning.  A couple of miles walk, with not a single cache, and we arrived in Bourne End.  We stepped aside to find the third Sidetracked cache of the day, near Bourne End station; we’d passed close by while we were on the train but we didn’t have quite enough time to find the cache while the train paused at the station.

Bourne End railway bridge

Just here, the Thames Path crosses to the other side of the Thames, and it does so on the railway bridge.  Here, too, somewhere, is another cache.  It’s a multi cache, and the description gives five possible locations, with a clue to work out which is the right one.  We solved the clue, and we tried all five locations.  Could we find the cache?  No, reader, we could not!  We paused for lunch, looking at the river.  Then we had another look.  Could we find the cache?  No!   We reluctantly gave up and moved away downstream across the meadows.  It was rather hot now and we wished there was more shade.
At Cookham, the path diverted from the river, to walk past some expensive houses who had kept their river frontage private.  We passed the Stanley Spencer gallery, then followed the path through the churchyard, where a wedding was in progress; we’d read that Stanley Spencer’s memorial is here but we didn’t spot it.

We went down a leafy track away from the village; part way along a cheer rang out from the village.  We wondered if that was the moment England won the Ashes?  (Checking later, it wasn’t.)

Boulter’s Lock

Busy river!

We arrived back at the river, and the remaining caches for the day were all along the path back to Maidenhead.  It was so pleasant that I walked past one by 400 feet, when I should have been watching the GPS, and we had to backtrack; grumbles, and rightly so, from Mr Hg137!  Another  most notable one was entitled ‘You want me to look there?’ and was close to both a litter bin and a dog poo bin.  We spent some while feeling round in places where we really did not want to feel – and it was a very hot afternoon so things were … aromatic – but we found the cache close by.   The final stages of the walk took us back into Maidenhead and past Boulter’s Lock, which was packed, and past a blue plaque showing that Richard Dimbleby had lived close by (he was a famous war correspondent and factual journalist).

Richard Dimbleby lived here

Then we were back at the geocar after pausing at this poem etched into a stone by the river:

Old Father Thames goes gliding by
As ripples run he winks his eye
At Cotswold cows and Oxford dons
Nodding to Windsor’s royal swans
He bears our nation’s liquid crown
By lock and weir to London town
May all that know and love his banks
Pause here awhile to offer thanks.

Ian Miles (2002)

Here are some of the caches we found:

Thames Path statistics :
Route length : 7.6
Total distance walked : 121.25 miles

Caches found : 12 Total caches found : 221

August 1 Thames Path : Henley to Marlow

A mixed riverside walk, but only a few caches!

Today we took the car to Marlow, parked near our end point on the Thames Path and then headed off through Marlow Town Centre to a bus stop where a bus would take us to our official start at Henley. We had so few caches on route we grabbed one in Marlow Town Centre first. It was a great start!

Frequently urban caches are magnetic nanos placed on some boring, indeterminate railings. This cache was a magnetic log book tucked away near a golden letter box.

“Read all about it ! – Cache hidden in Marlow”

British readers may recall that the Post Office painted post boxes gold to celebrate the ‘birthplace’ of GB Gold medal winners during the 2012 Olympics/Paralympics.
Marlow has one such post box and it celebrates the achievements of paralympian, Naomi Riches, part of the gold-winning Mixed Coxed Four Rowing crew (LTAMix4+). Well done Naomi (and crew)!

Celebrating Naomi Riches’ 2012 Paralympic Gold Medal

Waiting for our bus, we chatted with another rambler expecting him to be starting his day’s walking. No! He had just finished his walk (at 10am) having left Reading at 4am and watched nature take its course as dawn broke. Sounds really romantic…but just think of the lost hours sleep!

We’d found many of the Henley caches on our previous visit, so we headed straight for the Thames Path. What we hadn’t realised was this was the day of the Henley’s Town and Visitor Regatta and there were rowers/scullers from far and wide. Our progress down the path was hampered by the spectators, coaches (on bikes looking at the crews not at the walkers on the Thames Path), and our stopping to watch the constant conveyor belt of races.

With lots of trophies to be won it was very, very competitive!

We got so used to seeing the crews gently paddle to the start, circumnavigating Temple Island, and lining up for the start.. we almost walked past our next cache.

Temple Island

We had a short walk, uphill, away from the river to find it. It was hidden in woodland and we were totally misled by the clue “at the end of some parallel logs”. We looked at the ends of the parallel logs – but no cache to be found. However there was a tell-tale pile of stickoflage a few feet from the ‘parallel logs’ which we eventually saw to yield the cache! Duh! We dropped our the BadgerBaby Trackable here – good luck on your new adventures!

Badgerbaby joins the other swag in the cache!

Back to the river and after the noise of the racing, we were grateful for the peace and quiet of the riverside walk. We reached Hambleden Lock – another place where people congregate and then onto open fields. Here we saw our first painter of the walk, and a fine picture he had created too !

Painting the view!

We were in a long cache-less section which took us away from the river at Aston and through a deer park. No caches here .. I’m sure the deer would eat them!

Aston : The Flowerpot pub

Aston : Deer

This was a surprisingly quiet section but as we have discovered once a lock is approached, so do the people. Near to Hurley Lock many families were picnicking, barbecuing, and having a good time. All we had to look out for was the occasional football being mis-kicked in our direction!

Hurley was slightly off the Thames Path – but it did have a cache ! It was a multi based on a location used in a 1981 Doctor Who episode “The Visitation”. (No we didn’t remember it either!)
We quickly found the all the information and more importantly, the Doctor Who themed cache container (no photo now.. wait until our end of year best-caches blog.. sorry!).

1981 Doctor Who filming location… anyone remember it ?

Hurley Lock was busy. It was THE place to be on a sunny Saturday afternoon. A campsite. An ice-cream seller. Toilets. Boats. River. Places to sit. People watching the world go by.

Hurley Lock

Here we crossed banks from Berkshire to Buckinghamshire and ambled towards Marlow. Just one more cache – magnetically hidden – but some 30 feet from the published co-ordinates. Fortunately we’d read this before we arrived at GZ, but it didn’t make our searching any easier especially as the path was narrow and busy!

So we found all four of our target caches, a gold post box, set a trackable free, and walked a further 8.5 miles down the Thames!

Marlow … here we come!

Thames Path statistics :
Route length : 8.75
Total distance walked : 113.65 miles

Caches found : 4 Total caches found : 209