How difficult is the Thames Path?

The least river-like part of the trail, and the part that surprises people. The spring at Trewsbury Mead is dry for much of the year and the bed can stay empty for some distance below it, so the first hours are field paths, stiles, a stretch of disused railway and a line of willows marking where the Thames ought to be. Water arrives properly among the lakes of the Cotswold Water Park and is a real stream by Cricklade, the first town. Beyond Cricklade it is hay meadow and quiet lane through small Cotswold villages to Castle Eaton and on to Lechlade, which is the hinge of the whole section: the navigation starts just above the town at Inglesham, and from there you have an actual towpath, broad and level, running out across flat floodplain past Radcot and Tadpole Bridge into the emptiest country on the trail. Nothing climbs. What governs the day is how much water the meadows are holding and how far apart the villages are.

Navigation: Acorn waymarked throughout and simple once there is a river to follow, but for the first 20 km the Thames is often invisible and it is the turns out of fields that matter, not the water. One thing worth knowing before you set off: the trail between Upper Inglesham and Inglesham has been taken off the road onto a riverside line, and National Trails' own advice on that stretch is to follow the signs on the ground rather than an OS map, which may still show the older route along the road.

In poor weather: This is flood meadow from end to end and it walks completely differently wet and dry. The stretch from Thames Head to Oxford is the part of the trail officially flagged as liable to winter flooding, and after a wet fortnight the field sections stay heavy long after the rain has stopped. The opposite problem also applies: in a dry summer the bed is empty for the first several kilometres, so the river is neither a water source nor a handrail. There is almost no shade anywhere between Cricklade and Lechlade.

Escape options: Thin, and this is the section where that matters. Kemble station sits close to the start. After that Cricklade at km 20 and Lechlade at km 37 are the only towns, both on bus routes and neither with a station. From Lechlade onward the road bridges at Radcot and Tadpole Bridge are the only crossings, both isolated, so a problem in the last 20 km means a phone call from a pub rather than a walk to a bus stop.

Eight kilometres of the quietest walking on the whole river, and the only part of the trail with no significant settlement in it at all. Wide flat meadow on both banks, Chimney Meadows nature reserve behind you on the right, and one piece of engineering to break it up: Shifford lock cut, a dead straight artificial channel about a mile long that the path follows before crossing onto the island halfway down on a wooden footbridge and rejoining the old river. Newbridge, medieval, narrow and with a pub at either end of it, is the one place on this stretch where anything happens, and it is the obvious stop.

Navigation: Straightforward, with the river or the cut as a handrail all the way. The single moment to pay attention is the lock cut, where the path crosses to the island midway on a footbridge rather than staying on the bank you started on.

In poor weather: Pure floodplain with nothing to shed water and nothing to shelter behind. This is the ground that turns fastest from flat and quick to slow and heavy after rain, and there is no parallel road or track to escape onto if it does.

Escape options: Effectively none within the section. Newbridge at km 63 is the only place a road goes anywhere useful; Northmoor and Standlake are around 1.5 km off the line.

The river grows up and the trail finally gets towns to aim at. Above Oxford it is still meadow and farm track, overgrown in places, pushed inland here and there by farms and by ferries that no longer exist, with Swinford's 18th century toll bridge and a run of lock gardens as landmarks. Then Port Meadow, ancient unfenced common with horses and cattle loose on it, and Oxford arrives almost without warning at Osney and is behind you a couple of kilometres later. Below Iffley the walking is rural again but the water is busy with college boathouses and pleasure boats. The middle of the section is the river's big detour: from Abingdon the Thames swings almost ninety degrees round the Wittenham Clumps, so you walk about 22 km to make 13 in a straight line, past Culham and Clifton Hampden and Days Lock. Abingdon, Dorchester and Wallingford give the day real punctuation. Level and mostly firm underfoot, with the meadows rather than any gradient setting the pace.

Navigation: Well signed and easy while the towpath holds, but this is the stretch where it repeatedly does not. The old towpath crossed the river by ferry in a dozen places and those ferries are gone, so short lengths of field track and lane at Bablock Hythe, at Shillingford and around Wallingford are the route rather than a mistake. Around Northmoor the path can be overgrown enough in summer to hide the line. Diversions on this reach do change; the trail's own map is the thing to check rather than a printed guide.

In poor weather: Port Meadow and the Oxford meadows flood in winter and hold the water for a long time afterwards, and being common grazing they are unmade ground with livestock on it rather than a surfaced path. Bank vegetation between Northmoor and Oxford grows high enough by midsummer to shut the river out of view and to soak you to the knee on an early start. Nothing here is hazardous in wind or rain; it simply slows down.

Escape options: The best served part of the upper river. Oxford, Radley, Culham and Appleford stations all sit within a kilometre or so of the line, and Abingdon, Dorchester and Wallingford are all easy to reach by road even without a station. The one real gap is Northmoor to Oxford, roughly 19 km with only minor lanes.

The one stretch where the Thames Path behaves like a walk in hills. The Chilterns and the Berkshire Downs pinch together at the Goring Gap, the narrowest part of the whole valley, where river, railway and road share the floor, and twice the path abandons the water and climbs. The serious one is above Whitchurch, where a tree lined lane climbs past a farm, drops into a valley and climbs out the other side, then runs through wood with the Thames a long way below and mostly out of sight. Between the climbs it is classic river walking: meadow under the wooded scarp from Moulsford down, the two railway bridges at Gatehampton, then Pangbourne and the wooded reach past Mapledurham. The gradients are trivial by any other trail's standard, but close to a third of the entire trail's climbing happens in these 21 km, and it is the only part where the surface rather than the river level decides your pace.

Navigation: Well signed, but this is the section where the river stops being the handrail. Above Whitchurch the route is on lanes and woodland tracks well away from the bank for a couple of kilometres, and the instinct to stay by the water is wrong. At Moulsford a riverside line now exists where older descriptions send you along the road, so trust the waymarks over the guidebook.

In poor weather: The climbs are on chalk lanes and leaf litter under trees, so this is the one part of the trail whose surface turns properly greasy rather than merely wet, and it holds that state for days after rain. Down at river level the meadows between Moulsford and Goring take standing water like the rest of the upper river.

Escape options: Unusually good for a rural stretch, because the railway is squeezed into the gap alongside the path. Goring and Streatley station at km 133 and Pangbourne at km 140 are both within a few hundred metres of the route, with Cholsey just behind the section start. The wooded climb above Whitchurch is the only ground more than a kilometre from a road.

The most urban thirteen kilometres outside London, and better walking than that suggests. From Purley the path threads the narrow ground between the railway and the river past Tilehurst, then takes the north edge of Reading, which is the least built up side of the town, on made up riverside promenade past Caversham and Reading bridges with offices and flats on the bank. The Kennet comes in below the town and the Kennet and Avon towpath heads off west toward Bath. After that Reading lets go quickly and the path is back in meadow at Sonning, where it crosses by footbridge and bridge and narrows to a walkers only route. Flat, hard surfaced for much of its length, and the quickest thirteen kilometres on the trail.

Navigation: Signed, but easiest to lose in the town itself, where the trail is one line among several on shared riverside promenade and the acorns compete with a lot of other signage. The crossing at Sonning uses the footbridge first and then the road bridge.

In poor weather: Hard surfaces for most of the section, so it walks much the same wet or dry. If a day of the trip has to be done in heavy rain, this is a sensible one to spend it on.

Escape options: The easiest exit anywhere on the trail. Tilehurst station is beside the path, Reading is a main line interchange a few hundred metres from the river, and every bridge carries buses.

Short, handsome and unmistakably moneyed. The path leaves the water at Shiplake and takes a tree lined road past very large houses and over the railway before dropping back to the bank at the lock, one of the run of inland dodges on this reach that exist because the towpath ferries are gone. From there it is meadow to Marsh Lock, where the path goes round the lock on a long wooden causeway built out over the water, and then straight into the middle of Henley. Below the bridge you are on the regatta reach itself, dead straight, mown and open, with Temple Island at the far end, and the walking stays in fields almost to Hambleden Lock. Busier with rowing and river traffic than anywhere else on the non tidal river.

Navigation: The Shiplake diversion is the one to get right, because the obvious line along the bank is not the route and the path is inland on tarmac for the better part of a kilometre before it returns at the lock. Everything else on this stretch is well signed and the Marsh Lock causeway is impossible to mistake.

In poor weather: The Marsh Lock causeway is boarded and goes slick in rain and frost, with open water on both sides and a handrail. The regatta reach is mown grass on dead flat ground and turns soft quickly once the ground is wet.

Escape options: Very good. Shiplake, Wargrave and Henley are all on the Henley branch line and all are on or within a few hundred metres of the path. Below Henley the first crossing is the lock and weir footbridge at Hambleden.

The long Thames Valley middle, and the stretch that changes character fastest. Meadows and lock islands at Hurley and Temple, a modern footbridge across to the south bank, then Marlow, where the path goes up through the churchyard and out over the town bridge. At Bourne End the river is crossed on a walkway bolted to the side of the railway bridge. From Cookham the trail is pushed off the water for several kilometres by three lost ferries, so the Cliveden beech woods, the best scenery in this half, are seen from across the river rather than walked. Maidenhead is the low point underfoot, pavement beside a busy road, partly redeemed by passing under Brunel's brick arches. Below Windsor and Eton it changes again: Home Park, the road through Datchet, then the wide flat openness of Runnymede with the M25 crossing overhead and Heathrow traffic passing low every couple of minutes. From Staines down it is suburban river, reservoirs, boatyards and bungalows, quick and easy and rarely far from a road.

Navigation: The bank changes constantly here and most of the diversions are the route rather than an error: away from the river at Cookham, along the road into Datchet, and onto the Old Windsor cut while the river goes round Ham Island. Bourne End is the one people miss, because the crossing is a footway attached to a railway bridge and does not look like a walkers' bridge from a distance. In Marlow the line goes through the churchyard rather than along the bank.

In poor weather: Very exposed between Dorney and Runnymede, where the path crosses flat open ground with nothing to break a westerly for kilometres at a time. Surfaces are grass, gravel and pavement, so nothing here becomes technical in the wet, and the made up sections around Maidenhead, Windsor and Staines stay walkable whatever the river is doing.

Escape options: One of the easiest sections to leave anywhere. Marlow, Bourne End, Cookham, Maidenhead, Windsor, Datchet, Staines and Chertsey all have stations within walking distance of the path, most of them a few hundred metres, and no point on the section is far from a road with buses on it.

Fifty kilometres in which the river stops being a river and becomes the Tideway, and the walking turns from towpath into city. As far as Hampton Court it is still gravel and grass past lock islands, boatyards and reservoirs. Teddington Lock is the hinge: below it the Thames is tidal, the level shifts several metres twice a day, and the towpath is a towpath in name only. Richmond, Kew and Mortlake are leafy and often muddy, an unmade tree lined path under big trees with the water sometimes over it. Around Beverley Brook above Putney the surface hardens for good and never softens again: tarmac and paving through Wandsworth, Battersea Park, Vauxhall and the South Bank, crossing to the north bank at Westminster for the Embankment and the City, and ending at Tower Bridge. The last fifteen kilometres are a city walk shared with commuters, runners and tourists, and crowds do more to your pace than terrain does.

Navigation: Two things need attention. From Teddington down there is a path on each bank, they are not equivalent and the signage assumes you have already chosen. And the Wandsworth stretch goes inland through industrial and commercial streets where the waymarks are genuinely hard to spot; Mortlake has a marked inland alternative along the High Street for when the riverside is under water.

In poor weather: Below Teddington it is the tide rather than the rain that decides the walking. The riverside path floods on high spring tides between Teddington and Putney, typically for one to two hours either side of high water, with Putney Embankment, Thames Bank at Mortlake, Riverside at Twickenham and the towpath below Teddington Lock among the named spots. It is shallow and it drains, so it costs a wait or a street detour rather than a wade, but it is worth knowing the day's high water before starting a Richmond to Putney stage. The unmade stretch from Kew to Beverley Brook holds mud for days after rain.

Escape options: Continuous and easy. Stations, buses and river piers run the whole way from Hampton Court to Tower Bridge, rarely more than a kilometre apart and usually far less, and every bridge is a way off the ground you are on.

Two quite different walks stitched together, and a section to read the distance on carefully. From Tower Bridge the south bank is stop and start: the warehouse canyon at Shad Thames, then Rotherhithe, where flats block the frontage often enough that the route becomes a sequence of short inland dodges along narrow lanes and Rotherhithe Street. Deptford and Greenwich hand the river back, cobbles, the Naval College and the Cutty Sark, and then the Greenwich Peninsula, fenced away from the water for much of the way round the O2, with working aggregate wharves and building sites on either side. Charlton is dying industry with the path running in a corridor between fences, and then the Barrier hoods appear, which is the finish most people are walking to. The official trail carries on about 2 km below it to the foot tunnel. The line recorded here goes further, out along the unofficial extension through Thamesmead and Erith to Crayford Ness at the mouth of the Darent, tarmac estate roads giving way to gravel causeway across grazing marsh, loud with conveyors and jetties on a weekday, and then it turns round and retraces the whole 17 km back to the Barrier.

Navigation: Signed but repeatedly interrupted. Between Tower Bridge and Deptford the frontage is private often enough that the route is a run of short inland detours, and one missed sign leaves you a street back from the water for a while. Around the O2 the path is fenced off from the river and diversions come and go with the building sites. East of Thamesmead the way is shared with National Cycle Route 1 across the marshes and is obvious once you are on the embankment.

In poor weather: Exposure changes completely below the Barrier. From Thamesmead east the path is on a flood embankment across open grazing marsh with no shelter of any kind, and an easterly comes straight up the estuary at you. Upstream of the Barrier everything is paved and walks the same wet or dry.

Escape options: Easy and continuous as far as the Barrier, with Charlton and Woolwich stations, the DLR and river piers all close to the path. Past that it thins out quickly. Thamesmead has buses, and the station at Erith is a few minutes from the riverside. Beyond Erith the riverside itself has nothing at all, and the way off Crayford Ness is either back to Erith or inland on the London LOOP toward Crayford and Slade Green.