Trail Guide to the Body: A hands-on guide to locating muscles, bones and more Student Workbook 4th Edition Although the eastern end of the Thames Path National Trail is at the Thames Barrier, you don’t need to end there as the Thames Path Extension carries on another ten miles to Crayford Ness. This is fully waymarked and generally referred to as the Thames Path on signposts, but uses a picture of a Thames Sailing Barge as a logo instead of the National Trail acorn. It is shown on the map above in green. For centuries the Thames was a hugely important trading route, allowing goods to be shipped to and from the capital, and exported across the world. The Thames Path is served by a number of hostels, although most are in London. Those near to the trail are: Getting to see what London has to offer is easy, especially if you walk: There's lots to explore and some great walks connecting them.

Hello all, I’m walking the path, stage by stage in weekly instalments this year, setting out from my home in Bedfordshire each time. I’m going from east to west and am using the Cicerone guide by Leigh Hatts. I have broken the habit of a lifetime and bought absolutely no maps for these trips because the Cicerone guide includes a separate book of the entire route taken from the OS’s Explorer (1:25,000) maps and so far I’ve had no problems at all with routefinding. I’ve also broken another habit of a lifetime and left my walking boots at home – the ground underfoot has so far really not necessitated robust footwear and I ‘ve been doing it in trainers.

By the nature of the fact that it follows a river, the Thames Path is a pretty flat walk with no real hills to speak of. At many points, it is paved, making walking easy, and for most of the trail there are lots of facilities available. Geraldine – there’s no Thames Path signs at Kemble station as the trail doesn’t go there, but if you get a guidebook or map, you’ll find the route easy to follow once you’re there. Once you hit Greater London, the ways of breaking up the Thames Path increase enormously. There are also plenty of tourist-related diversions that you may want to enjoy whilst breaking your walk. Because of this, we have provided distances between locations where there is a nearby railway or London Underground stations, although the whole London section is rarely far from a bus service as well. For added complexity, for most of the London section there are two alternatives – you can walk on the North Bank or the South Bank. In our experience, you’ll have a better time on the South Bank. It stays closer to the river, and has better views. However where the section can be walked on the North Bank, we have included that distance too. The guide includes an extension from Erith to the barrier which is worth doing – there is still some industry going on in this stretch (when I walked past a large ro-ro ship was onloading vehicles from the Ford Dagenham works on the north bank) and you can see the big yellow containers containing domestic waste arriving at the incineration plant at Belvedere after their journey from Battersea). If you like that sort of thing, of course!

The (far shorter) Thames Path Extension (from the Thames Barrier to Crayford Ness) is shown in this second map Planning an itinerary 180 miles from here to the source of the Thames Wallingford has the X39/X40 bus from Reading (and is ~16km from Goring) See: https://www.thames-travel.co.uk/routes/x38x39x40After Erith you need to prepare yourself to do a boring main road walk if you plan to reach Slade Green or Crayford. The Thames Path passes many railway stations along its route, meaning its extremely easy to split the route up into several trips. Indeed, if you live in London, or near the Thames, it’s an absolute doddle to walk most of the Thames Path in day hikes. The options are endless. Hi, I’d like to take my 9 year old lab on the path from Pangbourne to Reading. She is too heavy for me to consider lifting her over any barriers along the path. Are there any sections that might prevent her walking unhindered? A small group of us are proposing to walk from Westminster to Hampton Court. Do you know the mileage and how long it should take?We’d like to complete that section in a day if possible

I’d say don’t stop at the Barrier. . Thamesmead – the developers built a man made lake that attracts a lot of birds and parts of the path are very pretty (don’t go inland…).It gets bleak and wilder and more industrial nearer Belvedere (after Gallions Park) – sometimes in autumn there are seals.Having reached Newbridge by the end of 2019 as a series of day trips, I then somewhat stalled on completing the final section to the source, due to Lechlade’s pathetic public transport making day walks difficult, especially if travelling some distance to start the walk. I’ve planned for quite a few miles “inland” and diverting around – particularly when the river meets the River Cray, near Crayford on the south bank (see Mikey C’s route above). Once at Gravesend, I’m getting the ferry over to Tilbury (the only transport I’ll be using) and then it’s several miles round to Stanford Le Hope, past Basildon to Pitsea and then down towards Canvey Island. and following the Estuary waterline all the way through to Southend. It much depends upon the weather. April can be dry, warm, cold and wet ! The head of the Thames through to Tadpole Bridge is beautiful, quite wild, often off the river itself and quite isolated in parts, but awful if it is raining. That would take two days. Hello, I’ve just completed the Source to Oxford “paddle”. The floods had receded sufficiently to let us through, and despite bank holiday sunshine there were very few people. We’d planned relatively easy days, which was fortunate as the going was quite hard.