Tackley to Woodstock 6.5 Miles (06/11/23)

Members Present: K Maguire, D Martin, B Mulrennan, D Peters, J Hickling, H Jones, D Chambers, P Freeman, K Freeman, M Tinsley, P Cotterill and M Simmonds. (12)

After a rendezvous with Kim and Paul who had to endure an expensive taxi trip to Tackley from Oxford, we set off towards the Oxfordshire long distance path. This was with some trepidation as we witnessed lots of flooded fields from our train journey from Banbury. Surprisingly, apart from a couple of minor patches of mud, the whole walk was completed with clean, dry feet.

So, shortly after crossing the main Banbury road at Sturdys Castle and a bit more of the Oxfordshire way, we arrived at a lane that was narrow in places and quite busy with traffic and all sorts of obstacles to navigate such as roadworks and huge wheeled tractors. We survived luckily and continued into the extensive grounds of the Bleinham estate. This being through a gate in the wall that caused some amusement.

We decided to pass on an early lunch break to continue the walk along the avenue of trees towards the palace, passing the monument erected for one of the Dukes of Marlborough. We took our lunch standing on the ornate lake bridge and it soon started to feel cold in the chilling wind.

On our way out of the estates grounds towards Woodstock, we passed countless benches and seats where we could have had a more relaxing lunch.

From here, Kim took over the walk as she seemed to have frequented every single pub in Woodstock having been brought up close by. She was basically ignored with her favourites and we plumped for one close to the bus stop😄

A lovely sunny days walk we enjoyed, spoilt a bit by the short, but took ages bus ride back to Oxford station.

Karl