A walk from Cookham to Maidenhead, where we ‘had the weather for it’. Cooler and much more tolerable for a longish walk.
16 arrived on the shuttle between Maidenhead and Cookham, Geoffrey (our back marker) and I by car, and Pam joined us at the pub near Bourne End.

The walk is a figure of 9 – a circular walk back to Cookham High St and then linear down to Maidenhead – much researched and recce’d and Chris had his trusty app just in case.

It’s a varied walk taking us through the back streets of Cookham, passing ‘Fernlea’, the small Victorian house where Sir Stanley Spencer was brought up, apparently built by his grandfather, and where he was educated by his sisters in a shed built in the garden.
On to fields and cooling woods where we took a wrong turn, corrected in a matter of seconds by Chris, and the gentle climb up to Winter Hill, overlooking the river and Marlow, where we stopped for an early lunch. Some on benches, some on a grassy bank (where I seem to have acquired a collection of irritating bites).

Then the descent down to the Thames Path and a stop at the ‘Bounty’ – usually a very busy and noisy pub but blessedly reasonably empty on Saturday.

We continued along the Path, reaching Cookham High St, outside the Sir Stanley Spencer gallery, where one of the group dropped out to explore and visit the gallery.

The ‘tail’ of the walk is Thames Path down to Maidenhead, and its suburbs, eventually walking through a relatively crowded music festival (looked interesting), and on to the station, where sadly there aren’t any cafes for an end of walk cup of tea (or stronger).
Chris kept up a good pace and people seemed to think we achieved at least 2.5 miles an hour.

Trains back to London were pretty frequent. Geoffrey and I had a wait as only 1 train an hour on the shuttle back to Cookham (for a 7 minute journey), but it was a good day and a pleasure to co-lead the walk with Chris and Geoffrey.

Now we have Worcester to look forward to.

Lindy and Chris.