Day 10 - Sonning to Hurley, 12.1 miles

The weather looked a bit iffy when we set off from Sonning and the first 3 miles to Shiplake Lock were not very interesting.

At Shiplake the path moves away from the river and took us past some very nice houses, the very last one of which had a railway in the garden complete with station with chiming clock!

Once we were back by the river, we could see some interesting houses on the other bank under a chalk cliff and then all of a sudden we were walking out along a dramatic causeway to Marsh Lock, then back to the bank again.

Soon we were on the promenade at Henley passing impressive boathouses on the island and impressive boats moored on our side.  At the bridge we detoured into town having decided that a sandwich lunch by the river would be a good choice.  When we got back to the bridge and crossed it we were soon in amongst the demolition of the tent city which had been erected for the Henley Regatta which had just ended. The tents went on for longer than the Regatta course!

We walked along to Temple Island and sat on a very nice bench to eat our sandwiches and watch the world go by.  This was much more exciting than we had expected as a group of paddleboard beginners did quite a bit of falling off in front of us, lots of different boats came by and many waved (e hadn't had that many waves from he water since before Oxford) and back beyond Henley Church something was going up in flames.

After lunch we decided to moderate our pace and after strolling along the river bank past lots of temporary moorings, we stopped for another sit down at Hambleden Lock, where there is a seriously impressive weir.

The route then went inland via Aston Village and Culham Court and its estate which is lovely and includes 'unusual' art installations and a deer park.

The next bit was less inspiring as it was back to the field paths until we reached what must be one of the biggest static caravan parks anywhere, it went on for almost a mile, but on the up side, there were lovely lawns by the river with benches.  Just before we reached Hurley, there were lots of Bristol TV and Film Services trucks, but we have no idea what they were filming.

Any finally we reached the lovely village of Hurley. And the really good news is that we passed another milestone today and we have now got under 100 miles to go.