Sandford-on-Thames to Abingdon

We are starting gradually - six miles on the path only for the first full day (but add another two or three to get from and to hotels).

Once we got back to the path at Sandford-on-Thames, traffic noise dissipated, replaced by birdsong - including distant cuckoo calls. The path here is very rural, narrow in places, and hardly a building on the path between Sandford and Abingdon.

Unfortunately, a significant and ugly complex of industrial-style buildings are Radley College Boathouse with ancillary structures which, sadly, spoil the scene for some way around.

By the side of the river approaching Abingdon along here we observed bivalve shells - subsequently though to be of freshwater pearl mussels - deposited here, eaten out by birds or animals.

We arrived at Abingdon in time for Sunday lunch at the Nag's Head on the Thames: a nice roast which came quickly and helped to reinvigorate us.

Abingdon claims to be the longest-occupied town in UK (or maybe just England) and has a historic look and feel. I didn't know that it had been the county town of Berkshire until 1869. The County Hall Museum has just had a big makever, and is a splendid example of what a town museum should be, with - in chronological order - an icthyosaur, a medieval map, a 1600 gallon, and a complete MG Roadster. Also a view all over the town from its roof. There is not as much to see of the Abbey, but apparently a lot of evidence of what was there.