Walk 25: Henley to Marlow - 16th June 2026 (rescheduled from 2025)

So this was the official final Source to Sea walk. It was originally planned for Friday 18th June 2025 but had to be postponed due to the heat.

This walk was on a Tuesday and purposely held the day before the Nature Connected Coaches Conference Live event at Henley Business School. I made a slight error in my admin and hadn’t realised I had scheduled the start time for 12:30pm as it was still in my calendar for a 10am start. I did have the foresight to book a hotel room the night before though so travelled down to Henley to stay at the Greenlands Hotel on the HBS campus so I did benefit from a leisurely start to the day.

The weather was beautifully sunny and had forecast about 21 degrees for most of the day. Luckily not too hot to walk in but I did send reminders about suncream, hydration and hats.

Neither Ann nor Jonathan could make this walk but I did have David and Lydia helping with the leading, navigation and back walking. I felt a little conflicted about this walk. We had finished the full project 10 days prior by meeting the barrier so this felt a little strange to be both out of sequence and going back to the more natural landscape after so much concrete and urbanisation of the last 4 or 5 walks.

A few people were late due to transport delays and despite being eager to start as I had a facilitators briefing at the business school at 6pm that evening, ahead of the conference I let my expectations go and invited myself to enjoy this final experience.

It was lovely to see some of our familiar faces returning for this last walk - David, Lydia, Ruth, Wesley, Mike, Hannah, Anthony, Mel, Caroline, but we also had some people joining for the first time, including Minna who was joining us from Finland.

Logistically it was a bit of a stressful few days leading up to the walk with lots of last minute cancellations and additions but we finally had everyone assembled to start with our usual orientation.

The coaching prompt to open the walk was:

"This was the walk that waited and is a lesson in embracing when things don’t go to plan. What might you be walking with today that isn’t going to plan?"

I can’t even remember what my response to this prompt was but I do remember the emotion in some of the sharing as people alluded to how much they have felt a shift in the last 12 months and how not much of that had gone to plan, and possibly the benefit of trusting the path to unfold.

The start of the walk was a couple of miles of road and fields to reach the River Thames. Despite standing in the grounds of the business school, right next to the river, the path was on the opposite side so we made our way through large open fields with the blue sky ahead, the sun shining down on us and the expansive view of the yellowing fields, full green trees and a few red kites circling high above us.

As we arrived at the weir at Hambleden Lock, we gathered to invite the coaching element of the walk with invitations for 1:1 coaching and coaching cards and paired conversations for others.

This was such a pretty stretch of the river and I found myself feeling much more gratitude for the opportunity to revisit this environment after the gradual progression into the city of recent months. The river was calmer and again, serving the wildlife on its banks rather than feeling a little exploited by the industry it leads into at the barrier. As it was a warm day, there were teenagers enjoying a swim in the calm water which left a few of us feeling very envious as the midday heat was leaving us in need of refreshment!

The picture perfect cottages, white deer and a large gathering of geese crossing our path - seemingly on their own walk down to the river - were welcome sights and the expanse of uninterrupted horizon and spaciousness of the fields with few other passers-by felt like a familiar return to the relaxing sense of our earlier walks.

We gathered for a late lunch, around 2:30pm under the shade of the trees along the river. Bella, our trusty canine companion of many of the walks, enjoyed a paddle in the shaded river and we were all somewhat startled when 2 drake ducks joined our picnic gathering, boldly waddling amongst our feet and even climbing onto our legs (which led to a squeal from me at the feel of their webbed feet against my skin! - I like my nature to respect my personal space!). Someone commented on the vibe of our group that even attracted these ducks to join us!

We led out of the walk with a silent reflective stretch and gathered again after about 10 minutes. Once again, this was an opportunity that people found restorative to allow the connections and reflections of the walk so far to land. As we waited for everyone to catch up we questioned the sound of some of the bird calls we could hear. When we looked around, we spotted a nest high in one of the surrounding trees and saw a red kite swooping down, sitting on the edge of the nest and the noise stopped. It was a nest of babies shouting out to mum, waiting for food.

The red kite has had quite a presence on a number of our walks, especially for David and me, and it sparked the creation of the red kite card in the nature based coaching cards I developed during these walks. To see them feeding their young on this final walk was a beautiful moment of symbolism and another shared moment of awe that I will recall with fondness in my memories of this project.

The final few miles of the walk into Marlow felt a bit of a slog. It was warm and we walked far slower than I had anticipated as we waited for the group to catch up with each other and took diversions - some official, some where we followed the wrong path! I had a lovely opportunity to walk with David towards the end, to reflect on our personal, individual journeys from the first to the final walk on this project. An opportunity to take stock of the difference in both of us since 31st January 2025.

During some of the road diversions there was much more litter than we had seen along the more rural paths and Mike had brought a carrier bag and gloves to help with the litter picking en route - I had left my little picker at the hotel to make room for a larger water bottle! It’s still upsetting to see how other humans discard litter along the side of a road as if they’re expecting the cleaner to come and sort it out, with little regard for others.

We arrived in Marlow to familiar sights from the walk where we left there in November last year. The narrow bridge back over the river that caused much trepidation as we drove through in our cars last time, no such considerations needed as we walked. And we gathered in the grounds of the park on the other side, passing the railings that in November were adorned with crocheted poppies.

We revisited our check-in question to see what we were leaving the walk with and the realisation hit me that this was the final farewell on this journey and I was overcome with a few tears as we checked out.

We said our farewells as half of us headed to the bus stop and the other half to the train station. The bus back to Henley was only a few minutes wait and about a 15 minute ride. I managed to grab a quick shower and change and make the facilitators briefing 5 minutes late, despite the rescheduled start time of 6:30pm, leaving little time to take in the fact that this was the final walk. I was mainly too hungry and tired to be honest!

I normally leave the day following a walk totally clear of any obligations or social activity to allow me to recharge my batteries. However on this occasion the following day was at the conference with over 100 people in attendance. I was delivering a workshop about group coaching with nature and then delivering the keynote speech to talk about the Source to Sea project now it was over. Understandably there were a few tears on stage as I hadn’t had chance to process any of it!

I had written 7 pages of notes so as not to forget anything but I ended up ditching the notes and speaking from the heart. Because ultimately, what began as a project to lead people from A to B with some coaching became so much more meaningful, full of heart as the community grew and the relationship with ourselves, each other and the river grew.

I wrote this reflection 1 week after the walk and have been able to do it without tears - the first time in a few weeks. Now for time to rest and wonder what the legacy of this amazing experience will be for both me and those who have joined or supported from afar.

My final question at the end of my keynote speech was:

"What might hearing this story inspire in you, what might the ripple effects be?"....