To Abingdon! (Thames River Ramble, Leg 1: Oxford to Abingdon)

I woke up at 6 AM this morning, my body humming with excitement. Today was the day. In a few hours I was to begin an adventure I’ve been dreaming about for ten years.

In Fall 2012 I went on a morning ramble down the Thames River toward Abingdon. If you’ve ever rambled, you know the thrill that comes from journeying toward the unknown. What is around that blind curve? How much farther can you go before you must turn back? Walk long enough and you may experience a moment that is transformative. That moment happened for me ten years ago when I came across this monument staring at me from a distance (apologies for the blurry image; at the time I took this it was raining, so I was using my phone camera instead of my Canon for this part of our ramble):

What was that monument? It stood there taunting me, close enough to draw me closer, yet unreachable across the expanse of the River Thames. Walking to Abingdon that day, I couldn’t stop thinking about that monument. Enchanted by the mystery of it all, I began thinking about all of the other places along the river that are waiting to be encountered. Spend even a few days here and you learn this truth: in enchanted England, mysteries abound.

When I returned to our family flat ten years ago I said to Tara, “If we ever return to Oxford, you have to let me hike the Thames River Path to London.” She was gracious at the time, but we left in 2012 uncertain whether we would ever have the opportunity to return. When I was invited by ACU Study Abroad to lead the Fall 2022 semester, I jumped at the chance. I knew that in addition to all of the pleasures that come from teaching students in a Study Abroad setting that being back in Oxford would allow me to realize this decade-long dream.

It may be difficult for you to understand just how excited I am about this ramble, so let me offer you a window into my soul by describing some of the things I’ve done over the last year in preparation:

(1) I began creating my own Thames River Path guidebook, drawing from internet research sites and Wikipedia articles. I’ve only gotten about halfway to London from Oxford in this guide. At this moment I have 16 single-spaced pages of information about towns, monuments, and sites along the river. I anticipate the guide will be at least twice that size by the time it is complete.

(2) I have spent copious amounts of time on the Thames Path National Trails website, plotting out the legs of my ramble. While on this site I’ve plotted to excessively minute levels of detail the river distance between different locations along the Thames River.

I need to be confessional here: my feelings about completing this ramble have been selfish. I came to Oxford early on thinking that I was going to do the entire ramble by myself. I envisioned the journey as a contemplative adventure done alongside my work with Study Abroad students, not a bonding experience with others. However, as I’ve been thinking more about the ramble, I’ve come to question this vision. Tara played an important role in helping me rethink this. She wanted to do at least part of the ramble with me. How can I turn that down? Further, I’m also thinking that rambling with students will give me a better chance to share the experience in ways that might benefit them too. Adventuring into the unknown can change you. It’s selfish to keep that to myself. While I do expect there will be some days when I travel alone, I’m now anticipating some rambling adventures with students and Tara. I hope they are looking forward to it as much me!

So what of today’s ramble? Tara and I left the ACU house on Woodstock at 8:30 AM, making our way to Port Meadow, the closest point on the River Thames from the house. Dodging the many parents taking their young kids to school (today is the first day of school locally), we headed south down the river toward City Centre. The official distance between Oxford and Abingdon is just under 10 miles, so I envisioned a walk that would put us in to Abingdon by noon. I grossly underestimated the amount of time we would need. The curve of the Thames around the west side of Oxford made the distance to Folly Bridge farther than I anticipated. The total length of today’s ramble was at least 11 miles by my count, and probably closer to 12 miles. We also walked at a slower pace than I normally do, in part because we couldn’t stop taking pictures (Sidebar: I’ll be uploading a large number of pictures from the ramble to my Facebook page for family and friends interested in seeing sites along the way). Stopping for a cup of tea at an Oxford cafe near city centre, by 10:15 we were on our way south toward Abingdon.

The journey itself was incredible, everything that I imagined it would be. On the southern edge of Oxford City Centre sit the many boathouses of the Oxford college rowing crews. Crewing is a major sport along the Thames (more about this in a few weeks when we get to Henley-on-Thames). The university is not in session at the moment, but we did see work being done in a few of the boathouses, and at least two individual rowers with coaches barking orders from behind them along the river.

Between Oxford and Abingdon are two small towns, each providing the name of one of the many locks on the River Thames: Iffley and Sandford-on-Thames. Sandford is almost halfway between Oxford and Abingdon. We arrived there around noon and decided to stop to eat lunch at The King’s Arms, a historic pub that sits along the banks of Sandford Lock (Sidebar: another pub owned by a conglomerate! Where have the indy pubs gone?). The food was great.

The pub was quiet and not at all busy. Alas, as we were eating it started pouring rain outside. The rain was hard enough that I contemplated taking a bus from Sandford back to Oxford, but by the end of our meal it had lightened up enough that we opted to continue our journey down the river, toward Abingdon. Something to know about the weather here: it changes quickly. Through the afternoon we encountered a few large bursts of rain, light drizzle, dry weather and then, as we approached Abingdon, a bright sunshine. Tara couldn’t stop talking about the smells of the river, the flowers, and the trees that surrounded us. For miles we walked through horse and cow pastures, forested pathways along the River Thames, with occasional longboats moored along the river shore.

A couple miles from Abingdon we encountered that strange monument again, the one that sparked this whole adventure (see the picture at the beginning of this post). What is it? That is Carfax House, located on the site of the old Carfax Conduit. Between 1610 and 1869 this site was home to a hillside spring with a lead pipe that carried clean water to the city of Oxford. It fell into disuse in the mid-19th century but now stands on the grounds of Nuneham House, an 18th-century villa that is now owned by Oxford University (note: I’m hyperlinking to articles that offer more details about these sites. There is a lot of interesting history here).

As we approached Abingdon, our pants were soaked, our hiking boots were muddy, but our feet were dry and our spirits high as the church spire at the center of the city appeared.

Tara and I made our way to a bus stop on High Street, hopping on the first bus back to Oxford. Unfortunately, we chose the slow bus that took us through rural west Oxfordshire. It took us nearly 45 minutes to get back to city centre, but the rural Oxfordshire scenery was lovely, and it gave us plenty of time to rest our feet. Special shoutout here to the lady with the stroller on the 33 bus who helped us out. I had £5 in change but discovered the return fare to Oxford would be £7. I pulled out a £20 note but discovered that bus drivers only accept change, not bills. I feared we were going to have to leave the bus, but a kind lady spotted us the remaining £2 so that we could get home! We came back tired, but happy about the first leg of the trip. Upon arrival at our house back in Oxford, I caught a lovely picture of several of our students eating a shared meal together:

My final words for today’s blog post are actually a question directed toward friends or readers of my blog who know something about one of the problems I ran into during today’s 11-mile ramble. Before leaving for Oxford I bought some waterproof hiking boots. They worked great today for protecting my feet from water, but I have a large water blister that has formed on the back of one heel, and a small blister that is forming on the back of the other. I have some questions about this. First, is this a sign that I did not spend enough time breaking in the boots, or is it a more foreboding sign that the boots are a bad fit? Second, if you’ve had this experience before, do your feet eventually adjust to these rubbing spots inside the boot? Can I expect callouses to form so that I don’t have to deal with constant foot blisters here, or I should be rethinking my footwear for the ramble? Third, is there something other than my standard cotton socks I should be wearing for hiking that may help my feet? I’d love to hear more.

Today was a great day. My next rambling destination? To Wallingford!

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