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The public footpath lay barely 20 metres from the place I stood, promising a stroll alongside the river, passing fields and thru woodland, properly away from any street. But there was one thing in my manner blocking entry to it. The very river it meanders alongside – the Thames – flowed between me and this legally designated proper of manner.
I checked my Ordnance Survey map of this a part of Berkshire to see how you can attain the trail, however there was no different footpath that might legally lead me to the island on which it sat (a bridge I noticed was not a proper of manner, with a closed gate). This was a permitted pathway that nobody might really entry, except that they had a ship.
It was this path that got here to thoughts when, a number of weeks later, I heard a few new exercise rising in reputation throughout Britain, one that mixes water and strolling: cross-country swimming. That is when hikers and walkers carry a specifically designed, giant however light-weight waterproof tow-float and a dry bag. So whenever you attain a watery impediment you possibly can merely take out your cossie (or extra seemingly wetsuit) and swim it.
This exercise was born out of lockdown, when swimming pools had been closed and folks’s actions had been restricted. It’s the brainchild of two brothers, Will and Tom Watt, the latter of whom I met at Grantchester Meadows in Cambridge to be proven the strokes, together with a small group of different curious water lovers.
“We spent loads of time within the Lakes rising up,” Tom stated as we ambled alongside surrounded by the thrill of grasshoppers, the flutter of butterflies and the chirp of birdsong, whereas the River Cam babbled fortunately by. “There you’d come off a hill and need to climb one on the opposite aspect of the valley however a physique of water was in the best way. It will be an eight-mile stroll to get round it or,” he stated with a smile, “a mile-long swim. It was then we got here up with the concept.”
The Watts spent a while trialling quite a lot of equipment to seek out out what might make this exercise doable, together with current flotation aids and dry luggage, however discovered nothing that might adequately incorporate all the pieces wanted. For some time they targeted as a substitute on occasions: they created the Swimmer, a central London half marathon that takes within the metropolis’s ponds, swimming pools and parks. However 2020 gave them the chance to work on the proper cross-country swimming pack and launch it with a retreat in Devon, which they promoted as “epic adventures over land and water”. All of it sounded enjoyable in a Kind 2 manner (depressing whereas it’s taking place however pleasurable on reflection), however what about those that are after much less endurance and extra enjoyment?
That’s the place this route is available in. It’s a comparatively simple half-day journey that Tom’s firm, Above Beneath, runs all through the summer time to fulfill the demand from much less hardcore swimmers. Starting at Cambridge railway station, it meanders alongside the Cam for 5km to the Orchard tea room, the place the likes of Virginia Woolf and Rupert Brooke wrote – and took dips. We’d be doing the identical (minus the writing for many, though not for me), finishing an exquisite moist and dry circuit by swimming again with the present within the Cam.
As wild swimming turns into extra in style (it predictably skilled a increase when restrictions had been utilized to gyms and swimming pools), it started to run up in opposition to obstacles, and this stretch of the Cam is a living proof. Earlier in the summertime King’s Faculty, which owns the land, tried to ban the exercise right here – regardless that it has been loved at Grantchester Meadows for at the very least 5 centuries – citing unruly behaviour and littering. Protesters have fought the ruling and, for now, the follow continues to be being loved whereas discussions happen between swimmers, council and school.
The scent of freshly baked scones and brewing tea blended with the notes of elderflower and freshly minimize grass as we reached the cafe. After chatting about a few of Tom’s watery adventures (together with a crossing of the Lakes, the Broads and the islands of Scotland) we walked to the sting of the river and turned into our wetsuits. It was then that Tom revealed his essential invention – the RuckRaft.
This can be a gadget a bit like a big inflatable horseshoe, with the raft produced from a toughened materials which means even when holding towels, consuming water, dry garments and snacks (something as much as 15kg) within the hooked up dry bag, it nonetheless glides on the floor of the water effortlessly.
As I plunged into the river, its coolness welcome within the humidity of an August day, the burden of my provides dissipated. My again was free, and I merely pulled all the pieces I wanted behind me, feeling nearly weightless.
I relaxed into the water, my hair flowing round my face as I slowly floated alongside dragonflies, a moorhen and her chicks, and a curious gray heron – none of which appeared to even acknowledge my presence.
The entire expertise drifted by all too rapidly and very quickly I used to be drying off and strolling again to the station feeling buoyed. Although cross-country swimming was invented to offer a problem, I believed it had given me one thing far more essential – the boldness to attempt it on my own.
So I made a decision to return to my inaccessible island, the footpath by the Thames. I headed to the Ferry Pub at Cookham with my new little bit of equipment (I couldn’t resist investing in a RuckRaft), together with a backpack filled with dry garments, a tenting range and picnic, head buzzing with pleasure. I used to be about to achieve that floating footpath.
I plunged into the waterway and swam throughout to the eyot, exploring its banks for some time. After 5 minutes of looking out, the island relented: I discovered my entrance level alongside a tree and hoisted myself out.
A fast dry down and alter of footwear later – from neoprene boots to sandals – and strapping my RuckRaft to my still-dry backpack, I lastly trod this path. Blackberries festooned the hedges and I foraged hungrily alongside robins, sparrows and wagtails. At first the footpath was overgrown however, as I neared the lock, it grew to become a joyous straight line edged by crowdless fields and overarched by bushes. Till, as merely because it had begun, it ended on the water’s edge as soon as extra.
I modified once more and swam farther down the river, taking within the part that runs alongside Cliveden en path to Maidenhead. It was as lovely because it was when Jerome Okay Jerome paddled it in Three Males and a Boat – “In its unbroken loveliness that is, maybe, the sweetest stretch of all of the river,” he wrote – lined now, because it was then, with the chalk hills of the Chilterns, and canopied with oak, sycamore and beech. Crimson kites glided above me as I backstroked so I might lookup on the woods.
Midway down I took a break on an island and made tea, courtesy of my tenting range, in a spot I wouldn’t have been capable of attain had I been strolling solely. Then it was again within the water till, simply earlier than reaching Maidenhead, I hauled out, dried off and walked the Thames Path again to the beginning, my smile nearly as broad because the river I used to be strolling alongside.
“The thought,” Tom had defined to me again in Cambridge, “is that individuals will use the RuckRaft and the concept of cross-country swimming to forge their very own routes and share them with others. To take pleasure in water as a part of their day fairly than fear about it inflicting an pointless diversion. And to open up extra of the countryside to walkers and swimmers.”
Actually, each in Cambridge and in Berkshire, my newfound talent had given me the prospect to do exactly that. Although the Thames loop wasn’t that lengthy a stroll, and the swim not too difficult, it represented greater than that – the prospect to pioneer a brand new route by no means open to me earlier than, the chance to achieve a picnic spot that in any other case would have been off-limits and, when it got here to that footpath, the power to entry the beforehand inaccessible.
Above Beneath runs cross-country swimming occasions, retreats and day experiences. Upcoming three-day retreats in Devon (July and September, from £324) and Ullswater (September, from £328), embody lodging, meals, instruction and native transport
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