22/05/22 - The Thames Path from the Perch at Binsey

Distance - 5 Miles

Geocaches - 1 x Adventure Lab Cache

Pub - The Perch

Summer is here. The Thames has wild swimmers.  And I am not just talking about the Cows.

Dunking Cows at Port Meadow

With added humans

This is a wonderful walk, that you could spend all day enjoying - should you include an Oxford City Tour.... easily accessible from where the Oxford Canal meets the Thames.

Downstream from Binsey - trying to not get annoyed by students on push bikes - criss crossing the Thames, its tributaries and weirs until limbo dancing under the railway lines at Oxford Station for the Canal.

Its not your regular, dumped shopping trolley type of canal. A nature reserve that is subject to re-wilding.  Even the graffiti is artwork.

Oxford to Coventry Canal

Artwork

Leave the canal at Wolvercote - a charming village of three pubs. The White Hart, Jacobs Inn and perhaps more famous, Trout Inn.

The Trout - usually more idyllic but a good lesson in water based construction

The Thames Path is picked back up at Godstow. The ruined abbey - nothing more than a wall - offering little to photograph.

There's no missing the Perch - with a pub sign right on the river path

An example of who you are sharing the path with

The Perch is one of those tourist pubs that I thought would hate but in the end, could only admire.  

A magical entrance through a narrow hedge lined path running over arched ironworks, bedecked with fairy lights.  This leads to an expectedly heaving beer garden, complete with outdoor bar. You can see why its popular.

Quaint little England

We've a table booked for a PHD Student's 24th Birthday. They've put us in a gorgeous conservatory, with wide open french doors. The service is exemplary and surprisingly, they are coping fine with the volume of punters. Its the sort of place where cauliflower cheese is an extra option on a £20 roast dinner. The menu has an additional couple of pages, listing the cigars and port.  

As a working class Brummie, I make do with Hook Norton Hooky. No Sparkler.

Oh, and the bill for four. Fair enough, I suppose. The birthday boy is my son.