My Actifit Report Card: March 19 2024

We’ve been meaning to walk the Ridgeway for absolutely ages and after part of our long weekend was slightly messed up by our broken car and couldn’t make it to Bath we decided to take our hire car for a spin locally along the Berkshire Oxfordshire border instead. Turned out to be a lovely day and Bath can wait till another day.

We set off from our home in Spencers Wood for Goring, just 30 minutes away if that, parked up in the main village car park and strolled on down the high street towards the river Thames and turning right where we saw signs for the Ridgeway. I forgot to take photos until we got a bit further!! Whoops.

We walked up past some stunning houses where workmen were gutting one of them and appeared to be building something new on the same plot of land. Just opposite though, was a lovely old building called Nuns Acre and a plot of land that ran down to the river which after some research led us to an online article about the place. A former nunnery indeed it was but the gardens are now a shared space for local residents to enjoy the river from.

Having passed the houses the pathway open up and continued up a slight but lengthy incline to its peak.

History is of course everywhere and part of this walk follows fairly close to the main Oxford to Paddington GWR railway line. These old gate posts we suspect led to an old railway yard, long since dismantled but you could see the evidence of what was once there.

Continuing up the hill we were now looking down on the river from a much higher elevation. The trees haven’t yet grown their leaves, so we could afford a lovely view of the lock and weir below. The river is still high in places after the winter floods and I’ll share photos later in the post which show this.

Because I was being a rubbish photographer today, we carried on walking some more but turned around and headed back into the village.

The Village Cafe turned out to be really good. We have been into Goring quite a few times in the past for bimbles. Never had enough time to stop for long though.

Today we spent a few hours around here and it was time well spent admiring the place where the Chilterns and Wessex Downs meet, the Goring Gap, the effects of glaciation millions of years ago that carved this beautiful landscape. The inspiration for writers, poets and movies in the past. Goring was once the home of, until his death, musician George Michael.

He must have enjoyed one of these beautiful hot chocolates. You should see their menu, two dozen variations I think there was? Mine was a Mocha, chocolate with two shots of espresso! Tina had the same.

We will return!

Suitably refreshed we meandered on to explore more of the village, the river and a spot of lunch.

Just outside the cafe we spotted this yarned letter box with the message “Save our planet” adorning it.

I took loads more photos and I’m going to turn those into individual posts, a guide to different places in our area for pinmapple!

This report was published via Actifit app (Android | iOS). Check out the original version here on actifit.io

Hiking,Walking,Photowalking