Day 21: Osney to Swinford Bridge

Baking hot day - the hottest April day for 62 years (apparently). Temperatures hit close to 30°C in the shade, so we put off walking until after 3 pm - but it was still very hot! The plan was 6 or 7 miles, from Osney (on the edge of Oxford) to Swinford Toll Bridge (near Eynsham). After parking the car, we detoured along some of the Osney streams, all really branches of the Thames, and in one place counted over 50 chub, estimated 1.5 to 3 lb each.

We walked for a mile or so to the very edge of Oxford, and out onto Port Meadow. Here we encountered people, sun, more people, cows, more people, boats, more sun, more people....

... until we passed the ruins of Godstow Nunnery and the path was quiet again.

After passing King's Lock...

... we came to an important landmark. On the edge of a remote field, and not marked by anything - here lies the most northern point of the River Thames.

The river was glassy still , and it struck us just how narrow it has become, compared to the vast river that passes through London - or even Oxford just a few miles away. The river continued to be glassy still, with shoals of tiny chub in the margins, for the next few miles, until Swinford.

Day 20: Iffley to Osney

This was just a short hop really - from one end of Oxford to the other. Probably only 3 miles or so, maybe less, but it sets us up for the much longer stretches upstream of Oxford. We set off from Iffley Lock, which was rebuilt in 1924 by Lord Desborough, then Chairman of the Thames Conservancy. This is commemorated by a bronze bull's head, below. Just around the bend is a less impressive commemoration monument - this is the Bourne stone, remembering Gilbert Bourne, a former Professor of Zoology and rowing coach. Bourne was coach of numeorus winning boatrace crews, plus a sort of unofficial coach to the Gold and Silver medal winning boats at the 1912 Stockholm Olympics.

Time to climb a tree.

A key milestone - where the River Cherwell joins the Thames, or Isis as we should call it here.

And past Folly Bridge, where Salter's have been hiring boats for a century and a half.

.. and then a small bend of the river along the very edge of Oxford, to arrive at Osney Island.