The first stretch we both knew very well - having walked it many times in both directions, in fact we'd gone under 2 miles when we encountered "distraction by pub" - this pub, to be exact...
...selling some of the finest Fullers Beers you'll find anywhere - we used to use this place regularly for summer CAMRA Branch meetings when we lived in the area and organised such things - no space inside for a meeting but for a nice summer evening when you could be reasonably sure of it being dry enough to stand outside on the towpath - perfect! There used to be three pubs along this stretch of the canal - this one is the one one still trading, and one of the others has been demolished in favour of building flats. It does still live on via it's pub sign hanging in the community garden opposite the site though...
We walked on, passing under Lea Bridge Road (three guesses how THAT got its name), and on to the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park - looking a bit sad and bedraggled now, it seems to be just biding its time waiting for it's regeneration to be complete so it can welcome people again. Such a shame to see the stunning crown of triangular lights has been removed from the top of the main stadium too - it seems quite odd not to see them there!
The weather was worsening by this stage - we did have a brief discussion about whether to stop, or carry on, but it wasn't TOO bad so we decided to tough it out and walk on. Some very lovely and intricate graffiti...
..people generally seem to be love it or hate it about graffiti, street-art, call it what you will. Personally if it's done well I love it. Some of it's a bit odd and random though - like this question...
Bizarre eh?! Anyway - onwards....on past "Three Mills island" (Yes, it really is an Island!) and then a right hand turn to follow the Limehouse Cut - we had two options for the end of the walk and chose this as it just *happened* to end up within a short stroll of one of our favourite pubs! Main thing notable on this stretch was this rather spookily lit tunnel...
...oh, and the fact that for a good stretch of it the towpath was constructed from rather bouncy pontoons...which was a bit odd! Anyway, before too long we popped out into the rather stunning Limehouse basin full of very posh yachts and looking all smart & trendy...cue a lame excuse for an iPhone generated panoramic shot...
And that's walk 1 of the year completed, ticked off and DONE! We will at some stage return and do the other section back up from the Thames to Three Mills - but we're happy to leave that until it suits us. Best of all my feet didn't feel like they'd walked more than 5 miles at the most, and it turned out that they'd done 8 - without even flinching! This bodes well for our next stretch of Thames path...watch this space...!
Robyn
2 comments:
I'm glad the new boots are so good. I spend a lot of time wearing walking boots and fortunately my current pair have been brilliant - but I think that I've almost worn them out now. I'm not looking forward to wearing in new boots!
This section of the Lea looks as though there's all modern development on the banks, but I always think of the Lea as the traditional boundary between Essex and London.
I HATE wearing in new boots - these have pleasantly surprised me though - I'd certainly recommend them. I used Mountain Warehouse at Freeport, Braintree, and the staff there seem excellent.
It's been odd, as we've walked along the Lea I've really found that I've noticed the gradual change from open country into built-up urban far less than I thought I would. The final stretch into Limehouse is probably the dullest bit though - I really had to struggle to find stuff to photograph!
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