Shilling to Pangbourne about 17 miles. I left the house early again arriving at station at approximately 8:15 there was a train at 8:30 to Didcot. The train was on time and I grabbed a taxis at Didcot station which took me to Shillingford and the kingfisher Arms. Taxi cost for £25 and paid by contactless card. The weather was pretty grey and even raining on the way to Pangbourne. However the BBC weather promised that the sun would start shining at around 12 and before that it would brighten up.
Halfway to Wallingford a dog came bounding towards me and jumped up leaving muddy footprints on my clothes. Some dog owners need to take more control of their dogs. At Wallingford I took a detour into town for coffee and cake and then picked up some sushi at the local Waitrose. The weather continue to be very windy so listening to podcasts was a bit of a challenge.
The path is pretty rural from then on and the weather perked up there were some great landscape pictures with great blue skies and white fluffy clouds. I passed the nature reserve where in a previous year I had made a visit to see the monkey and frog orchids. Just after the nature reserve is about the only significant Hill on the Thames path where the past leaves the river for a while and goes up high on the escarpment. As I hit the hill some raising music came on a podcast I was listening to it encourage me to walk faster up the hill clearly my attempt at starting to run again was paying off as it had improve my fitness slightly.
After the hill you hit the little village of Whitchurch on Thames and it is a very short walk down the road to the toll bridge which links Whitchurch to Pangbourne. In Pangbourne a festival was going on I didn’t stop but grabbed a coffee and then headed straight to the railway station car park to pick up my car. It had been a long day at 17 miles but well worth the effort.