Day 1 Kemble to Cricklade

Scores on the doors:
Kemble station to The Source 1 mile
The Source to Cricklade 12.8 miles
Average pace 19m 42s per mile, including faffing, drinking, looking at the book, taking photos etc.
Weather started gloomy pretty much when I got to The Source turning sunny although breezy all day

What a lovely day to start! English countryside doing its best to look gorgeous. The Source of the Thames is, shall we say, dry but it has its moments going from stream, to trickle to a good impression of a small river and everything in between. The Thames Path doesn't hug the river the whole time; some of the route is where the river used to go or perhaps you just didn't want to swim under that house! There's a lot of water around and about where gravel pits have been turned into fishing lakes, a water park, a nature reserve and so on. Quite calming.

I had lunch overlooking the lake at Neigh Bridge Country Park. I could hear a cuckoo! Two rather wet black labradors came to see if I had any food to share, one even sat obediently in front of me with that "I'm really hungry, I'm a labrador" look in her eyes. 

As is the way, I kept tally of what I was seeing. Beautiful Wiltshire villages with cottages of Cotswold stone were sprinkled about. It's baby time for wildlife: ducklings, cygnets, thousands of very small dragonflies. There were several different types of butterfly - white, yellow, brown with eyes on their wings, orange with patterns, a different orange one with patterns. You can tell I'm an expert. They were all pretty though. One rabbit, plenty of sheep and lambs, cows and calves, birds. However, no ring-necked parakeets, foxes or cats.

Cricklade is a small place but it has a few pubs. I'm staying at one but it doesn't do food. They gave me a bigger room than I'd paid for but the bath is the smallest I've ever tried to get into! A small child might be able to lay down in it but otherwise you have to choose which bit of you want to be in the water. And wifi. So let's start this year's battle to get some pictures on here...