Well, summer’s definitely packing its bags and giving up for the year, and the river’s getting a bit of a chill to it. So, time to start having a dip more often! Cold water swimmers get acclimatised to the cold water so they can stay in longer and with less Aïii-factor. The best way to get acclimatised is to simply keep swimming as the weather gets colder – a couple of times a week is reckoned to be best.
More problematic than the cold (for now at least!) is the dark and gloom of encroaching winter making it hard to swim before it’s dark. Still, we’ve managed a couple of times this week (OK, once wasn’t really before it got dark…) and very nice it’s been too. We’ve swum at one of our regular spots in the Thames just upriver of Reading. There’s a convenient sloping bit of concrete (not intended to be so I suspect) for easy entry and exit, and usually a surprising amount of wildlife so close to the town – we’ve seen a kingfisher there, low down and hidden from the bank but easily spotted from the middle of the river. Today it was just the resident heron and some very athletic fish leaping clear of the water.
The temperature earlier in the week was 16 °C and today probably a degree or two colder. Not especially cold for anyone used to swimming in the summer, but a feeling a little prickly almost – a taster of what’s to come.
Getting there
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This spot’s on the Thames Path (as ever) about 15-20 minutes walk from Caversham Bridge, about another 10-15 minutes to the station. Reading station is of course the bustling hub of rail transport, so no problems getting there. Various buses including the X39/X40 from Oxford, Wallingford and other places, and the 800 from Henley go directly over Caversham Bridge.
