D'Arcy Dalton Circular

The D'Arcy Dalton Way is a 66.4 mile footpath from Wormleighton Reservoir to Wayland's Smithy. I've invented the name D'Arcy Dalton Circular to mean a circular route that involves walking the D'Arcy Dalton Way together with sections of the Thames Path, the Oxford Canal, the Ridgeway and the Wiltshire and Berkshire Canal.

During September 2005, I walked the D'Arcy Dalton Circular.

I would like to say thank you to Nick Moon. He's the author of the book I used to navigate along the D'Arcy Dalton Way. The words he uses to describe the route ahead are excellent. Often he assumes quite rightly that there is nothing in front of you that shows which way to go (usually because the field has recently been ploughed): instead he gives you a direction to walk by relating to features on the horizon. This has successfully happened numerous times: thanks Nick.

The full details of the book are as follows: The D'Arcy Dalton Way Across the Oxfordshire Cotswolds and Thames Valley by Nick Moon (The Book Castle, 1999, 1871199344)

Each day I returned home to Abingdon, and then the following day I'd go from home to where I'd left off the day before. For this I made considerable use of public transport. I would also like to say thank you to the people who maintain the web pages I used for sorting out which buses and trains to use. I used www.travelinesoutheast.org.uk. Here is a link to their web site. Their web pages are excellent. Not only does the web site sort out connections and give you the timetables for each route, but it also gives you maps showing the position of each bus stop.

Also thanks to those who encouraged me to continue the walk even when the going got tough.

If you use the 12 links given below, you'll find the details of what I did on each day of the walk.