By Nick
This was going to brief because a) it's late, b) I'm tired and c) I've been drinking. However, on rereading, I see I've written quite a bit, and there aren't even any photographs to break it up. Sorry about that; I'll add some tomorrow.
It rained today. Quite a lot, in point of fact. We got rather wet, which may have effected our view of today's walk and the things we saw. That said, when it wasn't raining, we again saw some great sights, including things I'd not seen before. Walking along the South Bank was lovely, as was suddenly coming upon the golden hind amidst all the little lanes around London Bridge.
However a large part of the day was spent away from the Thames. Sometimes following a permanent deviation, but more often than not, a series of poorly marked, temporary detours around new building work.
Halfway round the big loop in the river that forms three sides of the Isle of Dogs is Greenwich Reach, where you can find The Cutty Sark, Gipsy Moth, the Old Naval College, the National Maritime Museum and the Old Brewery, where we ate our lunch.
So far, so good, but after Greenwich, the character of the riverside changes dramatically, as you leave 'Tourist Town' and enter an altogether different environment: one of an industrial, somewhat rundown, dirty and decidedly scruffy stretch of working riverbank. There are vacant plots here with no development in progress. There's an aggregates business that was working even on Easter Sunday. There are industrial estates, wharves and jetties that have nothing to do with leisure or housing. This is the rough and ready, scarred, littered and ugly, unbeautified counterbalance to all that has gone before. In truth, we didn't belong here. This is a part of London visitors aren't meant and don't want to see, and walking through it was a little uncomfortable. Even the stretch around The O2, while it's being redeveloped, is not for tourists' eyes, but isn't screened off as all the central London developments upstream are.
Whether it was our ill ease or the now torrential rain, or the knowledge that we had just two more miles to go, our pace quickened when we rounded the Greenwich Peninsula and the Thames Barrier came into sight. The rain began to ease and then stopped. Not long now, we told each other. Not much further, we told our aching limbs. Then, as we rounded the final bend, standing at the end of the path, was a small group of people holding a banner and waving flags. There, bearing gifts of beer and chocolate, was a welcoming party comprised of our best friends Richard & Gill, Marion & John. What a brilliant surprise, what a fantastic finish to our walk and what a sight for sore eyes.
From the barrier, we drove back to Greenwich for reviving coffee and cake, and from there, after saying thank you and goodbye to Richard & Gill, Marion & John drove us back to Juli's Mum's, where Champagne and an excellent feast awaited.
I'll most probably do a roundup post tomorrow, but, for now, sufficient to say: job done.
TTFN - N
This was going to brief because a) it's late, b) I'm tired and c) I've been drinking. However, on rereading, I see I've written quite a bit, and there aren't even any photographs to break it up. Sorry about that; I'll add some tomorrow.
It rained today. Quite a lot, in point of fact. We got rather wet, which may have effected our view of today's walk and the things we saw. That said, when it wasn't raining, we again saw some great sights, including things I'd not seen before. Walking along the South Bank was lovely, as was suddenly coming upon the golden hind amidst all the little lanes around London Bridge.
However a large part of the day was spent away from the Thames. Sometimes following a permanent deviation, but more often than not, a series of poorly marked, temporary detours around new building work.
Halfway round the big loop in the river that forms three sides of the Isle of Dogs is Greenwich Reach, where you can find The Cutty Sark, Gipsy Moth, the Old Naval College, the National Maritime Museum and the Old Brewery, where we ate our lunch.
So far, so good, but after Greenwich, the character of the riverside changes dramatically, as you leave 'Tourist Town' and enter an altogether different environment: one of an industrial, somewhat rundown, dirty and decidedly scruffy stretch of working riverbank. There are vacant plots here with no development in progress. There's an aggregates business that was working even on Easter Sunday. There are industrial estates, wharves and jetties that have nothing to do with leisure or housing. This is the rough and ready, scarred, littered and ugly, unbeautified counterbalance to all that has gone before. In truth, we didn't belong here. This is a part of London visitors aren't meant and don't want to see, and walking through it was a little uncomfortable. Even the stretch around The O2, while it's being redeveloped, is not for tourists' eyes, but isn't screened off as all the central London developments upstream are.
Whether it was our ill ease or the now torrential rain, or the knowledge that we had just two more miles to go, our pace quickened when we rounded the Greenwich Peninsula and the Thames Barrier came into sight. The rain began to ease and then stopped. Not long now, we told each other. Not much further, we told our aching limbs. Then, as we rounded the final bend, standing at the end of the path, was a small group of people holding a banner and waving flags. There, bearing gifts of beer and chocolate, was a welcoming party comprised of our best friends Richard & Gill, Marion & John. What a brilliant surprise, what a fantastic finish to our walk and what a sight for sore eyes.
From the barrier, we drove back to Greenwich for reviving coffee and cake, and from there, after saying thank you and goodbye to Richard & Gill, Marion & John drove us back to Juli's Mum's, where Champagne and an excellent feast awaited.
I'll most probably do a roundup post tomorrow, but, for now, sufficient to say: job done.
TTFN - N
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