Planning the next stage of the Thames path – 07 November 2021

It’s the morning of the third section of my walk along the Thames from Kingston-upon-Thames onwards.

Rucksack on the floor — My rucksack & 2 water bottles ready to go

What I’ve done so far and what adjustments I made

I’ll be taking it slower in these couple of next sections than I did for the first two sections. I’m planning fewer miles a day to make it easier on my feet and also to allow for long transport time on day one and limited day light at this time of the year. The sun will set in Chertsey at 16:26 on Sunday.

The aim is to go to Chertsey by the end of the first day (Sunday) then to Windsor the next day (Monday) and to Marlow the following day (Tuesday), so that’s three days walk along the Thames.

After the first two sections of the walklast month, I had to rest my feet (well, my right foot) for a few weeks and skip a couple of weekends of walking as I was in a lot of pain when walking. I even had an x ray. But all was good thankfully.

I’ve also bought myself some new trail shoes, because I realised that I had walked over 500 miles in the previous ones, which might explain the pain.

So I would encourage people to want to do this walk to get some good comfy shoes for the first couple of days when you spend so long on pavements or even break the first two sections up in three sections/days, which is advised in some of the guides.

Updates

I’ll be updating each day as much as possible on my walks on the blog and posting photos.

For the first two days at least of this trip, I’ve reverted to bring only my phone camera (iPhone) rather than the DSLR camera. I will consider whether to use the camera again on Tuesday – after I’ve gone back home overnight. As it’s only a day trip or not an overnight stay, I will have less to carry do might be able to ‘afford’ the camera weight. As Sunday to Monday involves an overnight stay in Chertsey, I carry additional items along with me for the two days such as a wash bag and my PJs.

OS maps used for these sections (Kingston to Marlow)

Explorer 161 and Explorer 160

What I look forward to the most

Getting outdoors.
Seeing new sights.
Fresh air.