Reading to Mortimer

   Kennet and Avon Canal

Started out this morning together with Stephen to go by bus to the Reading train station, and we walked together round Reading centre, through the Forbury Gardens including the monastery ruins. On the edge of Forbury Gardens there's a Roman Catholic Church still built in the Romanesk style :

Then following the Kennett River & Kennet Canal towards the south & west. That way leaving Reading also leaves urbanisation behind fairly quickly too, and I found myself walking along the canal and lakes and nature reserves, while not quite escaping the noise from light industry, road and rail. I got quite adept at getting out of the way of  joggers and cyclists!

At Sheffield Bottom I stopped at the pub for a drink and then it went south through Burghfield Common towards Mortimer. A mixture of road walking, fields and forest.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I also started to see the official waymarkers, which looked relatively new.

 

At St Mary's Sulmanstead I had my lunch. This is a lovely little church ...

 

...in which there's also a plaque remembering Robert Venn, who improved the potato crop at the time of the Irish Potato Famine, helping it to end:

 

After that I got quite warm and tired and so was pleased to enter Burghfield Common. As this is a mixture of park and forest.

so a lot of cool shade and interesting paths. I even came across a few deer

Today's journey ended at Mortimer, with an Anglican and a Methodist church

 

I was then welcomed by my host family, members of the Methodist church, with tea, cake and a shower, plus a lovely dinner (beef strip salad followed by Greek 'Eaton Mess'), which tasted very nice. My thanks go out to them for hosting me here tonight.

Here's an overview of the route and weather :