1Million Steps Challenge-Day 1

Photo by Quu1ef3nh Lu00ea Mu1ea1nh on Pexels.com

Today 1st July 2022 is the start of my walking back to fitness campaign by taking on the 1 million steps challenge for Diabetes UK. I walked with the Windsor and District Ramblers and today’s walk was at The Thames and Winter Hill trail.

Winter Hill has some spectacular views but before climbing the Hill, we traversed across a railway crossing and over a bridge crossing the River Thames at Bourne End, where our walk had started. The route was led by our very experienced leader Joyce. For me climbing the hill was a challenge that I did not relish, but I needed to do it to get some practice for future such walks. Although I managed to climb the Hill, with a few stops to get my breath back! Slowly but surely, I will get better at this.

The descent downhill was steep but interesting too with the views of all the hills beyond and trees all around. We ended up on a flat main road, that took us to Marlow Town. We walked over a bridge across the river Thames towards a Church from where we ended up in a local park for a brief stopover for bathroom breaks. After this, we walked past the Church and down to Marlow Lock, where we took a lunch break for about twenty minutes. We were fortunate enough to see the Lock operating, with a couple of boats passing through. We had been walking for about two hours by this time and covered about 4 miles.

From Marlow Lock, we made our way to the Thames Path through some fields with wonderful views of the river and the surrounding houses sitting nicely on the hills opposite our path. The final stage of the walk was on flat land through various gates along the riverside and this took us back over the railway crossing back to our car park in Bourne End. This was a beautiful walk, interspersed with interesting vies and conversations with the group members. I’m looking forward to my next walk, which is planned for 6th July, a Wednesday, in Dedworth near Windsor.