Swim 2: Water Eaton Footbridge to the Red Lion, Castle Eaton

This combines swims 3 and 4 from MW and covers about 3.2km. We parked at the Red Lion car park at Castle Eaton:

http://g.co/maps/q7pwz

We rang in advance and promised to eat lunch there at the end of our swim.  The landlady was super nice and accommodating.  We walked up to start here, as above:

http://g.co/maps/4k5ep

We then waded, occasionally swam, down to the pub at Castle Eaton. A bit of a slog but doable. You can get out earlier, as per MW’s instructions. At the Red Lion there is a launch for canoeists with rope holds. You can haul yourself out on these. The Red Lion is the first pub right on the Thames and the grounds go down to the river so must be part of the Swim the Thames experience. This stretch also needs ‘feet’. There are bottles, rocks, bits of old car, dead crayfish, and other assorted goodies on the riverbed. Also watch out for branches, logs etc that have fallen into the water and may be concealed as even here the river is quite dark.