Leaves In The River

THE THAMES PATH – DAY 6: Wednesday 5 November 2025 – OXFORD to ABINGDON (9.9 miles)

I was quite surprised this morning to see that almost eight weeks have passed since our last foray along the Thames Path. Rachel and I completed our first five days of the walk in the late summer into early September but, due to commitments elsewhere, we have found ourselves planning the next stages well into the late autumn. So since our last outing the landscape has changed, with the trees now shedding their final golden and amber leaves and the tracks across parched grasses giving way to damp water meadows and muddy towpaths. We were fortunate with the weather today though, the warm southerly breeze bringing no more than some occasional raindrops, and the afternoon cloud parting sufficiently to delay the twilight just long enough to light the way to our destination.

Our itinerary left us precious little time to visit the fine city of Oxford: being just an hour away from home we have come to think that we know the place quite well, but in fact there are so many historic corners to explore that we would have benefitted from an overnight stop here, at the very least. It was not to be, on this trip, and we missed most of the built-up areas of the centre, transiting the suburbs (as we had on our earlier walk into the city) along the quiet riverside path, through a riparian landscape that remains remarkably unspoilt by development – to the extent that the café we found by Folly Bridge on the edge of the city centre was the last opportunity for refreshment before we reached Abingdon: lucky then that we had packed a picnic lunch! Here are a few pictures of our day on the trail.

The completion of the sixth day of our Thames Path walk saw us reach the one third marker of the entire trek: our guidebook tells us that we have now covered 63.5 miles of the total 184 mile route – good reason I think for some celebration as we plan the next stages of our journey. I hope to be able to report back in a couple of weeks with some further progress, before the preparations for the festive period begin in earnest.

‘Leaves In The River’, my Blog heading for today, is taken from the title track of American indie folk band Sea Wolf’s 2007 debut album. The group is led by Alex Brown Church, who wrote the song, and it is certainly an atmospheric autumnal number – so quite an appropriate choice for today on our Thames Path playlist.