Out and About Spring 2021

Out&About feature

 How to walk the Thames Path n Get a map. Ordnance Survey Leisure maps are excellent and there’s an app for your mobile device. n If you want to walk the entire Trail, in sections or during two weeks, make a plan to include overnight accommodation and public transport links. It’s useful to read blogs by people who have completed the Trail. n Use the Official Thames Path National Trail interactive map to create your personal itinerary www. nationaltrail.co.uk/en_GB/trails/ thames-path/trail-information/ n Find a place on the Thames Path where you want to go and off you go  Books and blogs to plan your walk along the Thames Path n Exploring the Thames Wilderness, a guide to the natural Thames by Richard Mayon-White & Wendy Yorke. Bloomsbury. n Walking the Thames Path by Leigh Hatts. A Cicerone Guide. n Thames Path in London by Phoebe Clapham. Aurum Press. n T hames Path A-Z for Walkers . OS Adventure series. https://shop.ordnancesurvey.co.uk/ n My Thames Path Walk 2020 , blog by John Tippetts www.thamespathwalk2020.co.uk/ n Go Jauntly app www.gojauntly.com/  Essential info Thames Path National Trail website with interactive map https://www.nationaltrail.co.uk/ en_GB/trails/thames-path/ Facebook https://www.facebook. com/ThamesPathNT/ Twitter @ThamesPathNT Instagram https://www.instagram. com/thamespathnt/ Tourist and visitor information: www.visitthames.co.uk

Old Father Thames at Lechlade

Picture: Wendy Tobitt

There are 23 highway authorities along the route of the Trail, from Gloucestershire to the City of London, each share the responsibilities of upkeep with the Trails team (and the volunteers) because it sits on Public Rights of Way, mostly Public Footpaths. They help fund repairs, access improvement works such as removing stiles, ramping bridges and improving surfaces, and undertake the statutory legal processes to ensure the National Trail remains open and available for public use. Steve Tabbitt is one of two full-time members of the Thames Path team. In pre-Covid times he spent part of his working week ‘on the Trail’ meeting landowners and partner organisations discussing new schemes to attract more visitors, and ways to improve the Trail. Steve also manages the contracts to improve sections of the Trail damaged by floods. Conservation work-parties of volunteers work in all weathers to mow the grass, cut back overhanging branches, put up new signs and install gates. All the Thames Path signposts are made by volunteers in a workshop, using sustainable wood from an Oxfordshire sawmill. Martin Beecher from Wokingham has been volunteering on the Thames Path and Ridgeway National Trails for eight years. “Volunteering for the National Trails energises me in a way few other things do. It gives me a real sense of purpose

Thames Path near Combe Field West

with so many people benefitting from the results of our efforts. “It keeps me fit and active and gets me out and about to some of the more remote parts of the Thames Path.” As well as helping to maintain the Thames Path, Martin also monitors a section that he walks regularly. “I note any problems and feed these back so that they can be sorted out. Often I’m on the work-party so I see the benefit of the work first hand. “Volunteering has opened my eyes to so much of the natural world around us and to be part of it rather than an observer.” Last year the Thames Path Volunteers received the Queen’s Award for Voluntary Service – the highest accolade for volunteers. If you would like to volunteer and help keep the Thames Path National Trail open email: thames.path@oxfordshire.gov.uk

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O&A SPRING 2021