Ah, the joys of English public transport... Is it any wonder I prefer to ride everywhere?The day started well enough, with blue skies punctuated with plenty of clouds as I made my way to Paddington Station for a train to Culham. I was meeting Pani, Nell, Helen & Heather for another leg of the Thames Path.
You may recall the group of us that did this back in June/July this year. Well, it’s no longer summer here, and with the xmas silly season fast approaching we didn’t have as many takers. “The Plan” was to head out from Culham and head north up through Oxfordshire to Oxford itself.
The first hiccup came when the ticketing machine gave me the wrong set of tickets, which meant that I had to line up again to collect the right ones. (I had pre-bought other train tickets for later in December and it gave me them.) So now with the right tickets, it was time to wait for the boards to show me which 
platform - 13 as it turned out. I made my way there only to find a train that had it’s lights out and no doors opening. Strange...
I looked around for some sort of train staff, to see one at the other end of the train wave and suddenly blow a whistle. I then had the joy of watching the front half of the train pull away from the platform... Next train to Culham... 4pm, which makes getting to Culham by 10am somewhat difficult.
Nearly an hour later, after a coffee and bacon n egg sarni, I was on the next train to Oxford , which stopped at Appleford - one stop before Culham. From memory, the path of the Thames went slightly south west from Culham past Appleford then turned north towards Oxford. Problem solved and I’d meet the others as they passed Appleford.
As it turned out, Pani and Nell met me at Appleford as Helen and Heather were running late. With cars parked, we finally set out along the Thames Path.
The Thames itself was rather full considering the rains that we’ve had recently and in some points it had a good flow. It did make it hard on the rowing crews we passed enroute to Abbingford (above). Plenty of green on the way to Abbingford, which is quite a picturesque village/township. 
We crossed the river at the Abbingford lock to discover that the Thames Path itself continued on the other side - and not in particularly appealing conditions as you can see here (right). I didn’t mind as my hiking boots were brilliant (again).
Continuing along, things became somewhat browner than green at times. I guess late autumn has that effect. The path itself improved for the next few miles until we got closer to Sandford-on-Thames. We could tell we were getting closer to civilisation as there were some large powerlines interrupting the countryside as well as more obvious farming. Oh, and the ‘occasional’ manor was being replaced by more riverside housing.
Across the lock at Sanford-on-Thames is the Kings Arms (pictured below), and thanks to the weather, this is where were finished the day. A warm fire in a pub, ales and hot dinners will always out do the lure of the evening dark closing in with the rain...A bit of a pity as we only had a few miles left to reach Oxford, but there’s only a limited amount of daylight in the English winter with the sun setting at around 3-3.30pm!
It also turned out that Pani and Nell lived “up the road” from me, so gave me a lift home. (And by “up the road”, I mean about a half hour’s ride away...)
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