Rivers and Seas (2)

The second of my rivers and seas series took us along the Thames Path, following this section from Albert Bridge to Tower Bridge. In actual fact though, we extended the walk at the beginning, by meandering our way from Clapham Junction up to the river, and shortened it slightly at the end, due to time constraints, finishing at London Bridge instead. Add a poorly signposted diversion of the route, and an even more poorly signposted diversion of the diversion, and we walked something close to about 8 miles all in all.

It was an absolutely lovely day for it, which was one of the reasons we decided to walk. Another was that my best friend, who currently lives out of the country, was in town and we wanted something to do which took us from Clapham Junction, where she was meeting someone else for breakfast, to Waterloo, where I'd planned for us to get lunch at the Real Street Food Festival. So it was the perfect route really and a really good way to take in the sights around the river.

Although it's possible to do the walk on either the north or south bank of the Thames, I would definitely recommend the south (and not just because I live there). You can't beat Battersea Park in the sunshine, the foreboding towers of Battersea Power station (although the developments going on there were the cause of all the very confusing diversions), whatever interesting thing is going on at the Southbank Centre ('cos there's always something) and the swarms of tourists around the London Eye and Aquarium (especially the ones who ask for an 'ice cold' at the ice cream van, because that's the text printed next to the picture of a slushie!)

But if you do dare to venture North of the river, just remember to break step on Albert Bridge, or you may end up in the Thames instead...

Rivers and Seas (1)

Coastal and riverside walks have been the theme of the last couple of weeks. The weekend before last, we were staying with family in Harwich, so joined their walking group on an excursion to Felixstowe. The most exciting bit about this was that it involved a ferry, which took us from the pier at Harwich to the beach at Languard, from where we walked into Felixstowe.

I do like it when Google Maps directions include ferries! It wasn't as warm as a May weekend should be, especially given the sea winds, but it was still good fun and we managed to squeeze in an ice cream before getting the ferry home.

All in all, we walked about 5.5 miles, which isn't an enormous amount, but was definitely enough, given that the reason we were in Harwich in the first place was to do a 20 mile bike ride the next day. Also gravel beaches are not the easiest terrain to walk on!

Capital Ring sections 4 and 5: Crystal Palace to Streatham and Streatham to Wimbeldon Park

We actually walked section 4 a couple of weeks ago, but I haven't got round to blogging about it yet, so thought it made sense to do it together with section 5, which we did yesterday, to save me falling even more behind on the list of blog posts in my head!

So, we've managed 17 miles of the Capital Ring so far, which puts us at about 20% of the way round. It's definitely getting easier to get up and go, with the sunnier days, and I'm very much looking forward to the next section, which ends at Richmond Bridge, where I've been recommended a very nice German beer garden. Our travels have so far taken us through six London boroughs (Lewisham, Bromley, Croydon, Lambeth, Wandsworth and Merton) and I'm intrigued to see how many the whole walk will cover.

Crystal Palace to Streatham (section 4) was a short one, at just 4 miles. The first half of the walk was mainly along streets, although we did pass through a section of the Great North Wood (although being in South London, I'm not entirely sure what it's north of!). Upper Norwood Recreation Ground was another nice green interlude:

We also learnt a little more about local history, after trying to find out a little more about this bench

And enjoyed a lovely view from the top of Streatham Common, rounded off by a banana ice cream from the cafe there.

We had a declicious late lunch / early dinner afterwards at one of my favourite veggie restaurants in London, the lovely Whole Meal Cafe just off Streatham High Road

Two weeks later, a slightly different group of us were back in Streatham to push on to Wimbledon Park for section 5. A lot of this was across Tooting Bec and Wandsworth Commons, and a lot of the bits that weren't on commons were along wide streets of the type of gorgeous houses which I can only dream of living in. The pigeon in this picture seemed to have the same aspirations - we stopped to watch him because he was making such a show of trying to get into the holes you can see above the front doors of these two houses:

A combination of the nice weather and it being a bank holiday weekend meant that the commons were full of people, and it was nice to see everyone enjoying themselves outside. Wandsworth Common is home to a particularly nice pond, with a very cool bridge:

And it was quite a shock to step off the common and come face to face with the slightly foreboding Wandsworth Prison, which the internet tells me is the largest prison in the UK:

This very end of this section of the walk, as we approached Wimbledon Park, marked the entry into new territory for me, venturing into bits of London where I'd not been before. I think much of the next few sections will be like that, until we work our way back round into North East London, and I'm quite excited about what's to come...