Day 8—Dorchester to Streatley

Day 8—Dorchester to Streatley

We had a wonderful stay in Dorchester. The inn was comfortable and the food was very good.

Dorchester is a very old village. Many of the building have thatched roofs.

During our stay, Dorchester was hosting the English Music Festival. We met a festival goer at dinner, the Recruitment Secretary of the Vaughn Williams Society. He gave us a complementary copy of the Society’s latest journal. He was in town for the festival with his wife, the author of steamy romance novels (her words). We enjoyed talking with the two of them. Anne and I would have  also enjoyed attending the choral music performance that night at the local abbey featuring Vaughn Williams. But we opted for an early night after our long hike. 

Our conversations with the locals have been pretty limited. Their standoffishness was confirmed for us to by two men that were sitting at the table next to ours at dinner in Abingdon, with whom we struck up a conversation. At one point they asked if we found people in England to be friendly. When we hesitated, they nodded and said that it was because we were in the south of England. They were from the north and said that the south of England is an unfriendly place. They predicted, correctly, that we hadn’t conversed much with the locals. They advised us to immediately head north.

We stopped by Dorchester Abbey on our way out of town.

After several miles of walking, we came to Benson Lock and a ferry across the Thames.

We had to take the ferry because a bridge is out. It’s hard to see, but the ferryman is wearing a Green Bay Packers cap. He replied enthusiastically when I asked if he was a Packers fan. He had spent time in Chippewa Falls many years ago with his former job and had remained a Packers loyalist, maybe the only one in Benson Lock.

When we got to the ferry landing, the boat was on the other shore. Near the ferry landing were two docks, one with a sign for the ferry.  Anne went and stood by the dock with the sign. I pointed out that the dock she was standing beside was too small for the ferry and that she should stand with me by the longer dock. She gave me a look. The ferry arrived and pulled up to the dock beside Anne. We both started laughing as I walked over to Anne’s dock. A woman standing nearby looked at us quizzically, I explained my mistake to her. She looked at Anne and said, he’ll learn. Anne said, no he won’t.

There are more villages on this part of the Thames. We walked through several of them today.

We passed by another old church.

The walk today was 12.5 miles. But we both feel pretty good. At the hotel in Dorchester, the food and beverage manager had graciously carried our bags upstairs to our room. My back felt a lot better today.