Flying High...

A couple of years ago, for my birthday, MrEH bought me a flight in the same type of vintage aircraft I have flown in before - the DeHavilland Dragon Rapide. I looked into booking it that first summer - only to find there were no available dates that suited me. Then I looked into booking it again last year, only to find that the company running the flights did not, at that stage, have a secure website for taking card payments for bookings....sigh! I suddenly thought about it again a few weeks ago and decided to take another look, and to my delight firstly the website is now secured and secondly there were LOTS of dates to choose from - including to my delight one in just a couple of weeks time, on a Friday where I had nothing in the diary!

Last Friday I travelled to Duxford where I was admitted to the Imperial War Museum free of charge on production of the voucher I received when I made my booking, given a map of the site and dispatched off towards the "Classic Wings" enclosure on the flightline in order to register my arrival, get given my ticket for the flight and hop on the scales - everyone gets weighed so that Classic Wings know how to distribute people through the aircraft - apparently she prefers lighter people at the front, which was wonderful for me as that meant I got given one of the front seats, and being directed to board first meant that I got the one directly behind the pilot's doorway - meaning I could see directly ahead of me throughout as well as off to the side - wonderful! 7 of the 8 seats were occupied in the end - including the one behind me which was taken by the loadmaster from one of the American Douglas Dakota's that had arrived at Duxford ahead of the D Day commemorations which were shortly to be taking place - they weren't going to have time to do any sightseeing so when he'd seen the flight advertised on arrival he thought it would be a great way of seeing London!

Our pilot - Brian - had a quick word with us before popping on his headset and getting ready for engine start - basically explaining that the exact route we took on the way down would depend on how we got routed by ATC for the three busy airspaces we'd be travelling through - Stansted, London City and Heathrow Airports - but that essentially we'd be going roughly through the Lea Valley before reaching central London, over the Olympic Park and then on to the river, before doing some manoeuvering over some of the main sights to make sure everyone stood a good chance of seeing them. Then it was engine start, taxi to the runway and before we knew it we were airborne and turning gently to the south to start our trip. I was looking out for Harlow on the way down needless to say, but the best I spotted was Hoddesdon, not all that far from us, and at that point I switched my attention to the front to see the Lea Valley appearing ahead of me, and Wembley visible way off to the West shortly followed by the new Tottenham Hotspur stadium.  It seemed hardly any time after that before the "Stadium hat-trick" was completed by the Olympic Park appearing, again off the starboard wing - amazing to see the whole park laid out below us like this!

On to the river, then, and a sweep over Greenwich and past the Isle of Dogs and the Millenium Dome - or the O2 as we're now meant to call it of course!  Amazing to see the iconic shape of the "bulge" in the Thames formed by the IoD & the Greenwich Peninsular clearly visible 

Look carefully in the one below and you can see the Cutty Sark (click on the picture and it will enlarge) as well as the Royal Naval College at Greenwich - this was a favourite section when we did the Themes path walk through this area.

Brian wasn't kidding when he said he'd make sure everyone got a good view either - we flew around the Shard several times from all angles getting great views - at times it felt as though we were almost on a level with it! 

These are a mix of pictures from my phone and some taken with the camera that yes, I inevitably had with me too! There are a LOT more photos to go through yet too and I may well do another post at some stage with some more - I've had a quick look at a few and it's fascinating spotting places that I'd not recognised from the air. Apparently we had a quite wide divert around Stansted airspace both ways which meant we got a slightly longer flight than sometimes happens - I think the only person even slightly complaining was the lady in the other front seat who did need to make use of a little white bag at one stage, poor thing! You get a lot of turbulence from an aircraft that size, and combined with the "vintage" smell of fuel that tends to linger, it can make you feel ever so slightly queasy - I found that making sure I fixed my eyes out at a distance if I started feeling even vaguely uneasy did the trick for me, thankfully. 

It was a fantastic experience and one I'd certainly be interested to repeat at some stage - Classic Wings are efficient and friendly and if anyone fancies a similar experience I'd strongly recommend them - there are also other companies doing the same thing on the same aircraft type elsewhere in the country, I believe. For a Londoner, the trip I did would really be hard to beat, however! 

Robyn

Thames Path - Section 3

Last week we braved a chilly day with an icy wind blowing to walk the next section of the Thames Path - very different to the areas we'd passed through previously, this one, and we also had no idea how closely we'd be able to stick to the river itself, how many diversions we'd have to make "inland" as it were, and how far we'd manage to get. we had our sights set on at least getting to the West End - Westminster - but no firm plan for an end point.

We started this section as close to the River as it was possible to be, really - you'll see from the above that with the tide out on this stretch, we were able to wander right down onto the foreshore, and at one stage I was even standing just in the water itself - the first time I've ever done that, I believe! There were people wandering with metal detectors - the word "Mudlark" refers to people who scour the foreshores of the Thames for treasures in fact - and others walking a dog, (River and Rover interacting?)  which appears to be having a fabulous time! For us though it was time to go and find one of these...

The boat on the pointy end of the signpost is a Thames Barge -these would have been a familar sight on the river in years gone by, but we've not seen any at all, so far, although our next stretch - through St Katherine's Dock - will change that. Far from boats though, this time one of the most striking things we saw was architecture - there have been a huge number of housing developments taking advantage of the golden sales line "River Views" and inevitably the designers of these have capitalised on said views by giving the apartments as much window area as possible...

 

And those particular flats would have a rather excellent view of the Battersea Heliport - used regularly for both commercial and sightseeing flights, there were flights coming and going all the time, I didn't have to wait for long to get this lucky load of sightseers heading off for their aerial view of the City.

Although cold it was a gorgeous sunny day - the views along the river were stunning - this was looking across to Chelsea...

...and we weren't the only ones enjoying the views either - yes, I confess, I did wait to get the London Bus crossing Battersea Bridge in the background of this shot!

Just a little further, and time for possibly one of the most striking bridges over the Thames - The Albert Bridge. Definitely up there with Hammersmith, and of course Tower...and helpfully empty of traffic when I wanted to take this photo!

There are more bridges on the stretch we walked this time than we will encounter anywhere else on the walk, and, in fact, when we set off on the next stretch from Tower Bridge, we'll be turning our backs on the final Bridge across the London stretch of the Thames - from then on it's all tunnels until you reach the Dartford Crossing - and our walk will finish before that!

A little further and we reached Vauxhall - another area chock-full of new development. These rather expensive looking buildings caught my eye...

...and then, looking past the Bridge - a familar sight - the MI6 building. Remember seeing this getting blown up in Skyfall? I can assure you that "no buildings were harmed in the making of that film" and here it is all in one piece...

We chose to cross to the South Bank at Lambeth Bridge - much loved by London drivers wanting to head from North, to South West London, this one, as it's the easiest, most traffic-free route by far across the water. On foot though, and heading East, we were soon into one of London's most touristy areas - the South Bank - home, of course, to this...

Now regular blog visitors may remember that I've had an ongoing project for several years now trying to document the Eye with shots from as many different angles as possible. As time goes on this gets more tricky, but I did get a few different ones this time - I'll share some more of those in another post, I think.
Weekends on the South Bank also mean the famous second hand book market. MrEH, needless to say, had to stop for a rummage, and I used the time to do a bit of street photography - not a subject I do much of but this is a great place for it and I can rarely resist when I'm in the area...

Time to stop for the final cups of tea from our flask (and some doughnuts bought from a stall - tasty they were too!) before the final stretch....

Arriving at Tower Bridge just as the light starts to fall is never a bad thing - MrEH commented that the last time we'd stood and looked at it, it was wearing its Olympic Rings - in fact I believe it was the day of the Cycling Road Race which I blogged about.

We decided in the course of the day that Tower Bridge was the perfect place to finsh this stretch - it was clearly going to be getting fairly late by the time we got there, and the transport links mean it's an easy spot to get to and from making it idea for the start of the next section. So, that's it - section three done and dusted. From Station to Station (Putney Bridge to Tower Hill) we walked a little over 10.5 miles this time - the longest section we've done, and it's a credit to my still fairly new walking boots that it didn't feel that far at all. The next stretch will be at some stage during April - we've not set the date yet, but we're already looking forward to it!

Robyn

Thames Path - Section 2

Last Sunday dawned gloriously sunny so we set off to walk the next section of the London Thames Path. You might remember that our first days walking a few weeks ago took us from Hampton Court (the start of the London Section) through to Richmond Bridge, so naturally enough it was to Richmond Bridge that we headed to start this section! It's a far easier journey than Hampton Court as the whole trip can be done using the London underground, mind you, the District Line all the way down there still takes an age! We arrived at Richmond at just before midday though, giving us plenty of time for the stretch we wanted to walk.

The first thing that struck us about Richmond was how old fashioned it felt - with lots of old fashioned proper boathouses still working on "real" wooden boats (and submarines, apparently!). The second thing that struck us was that the path along the first stretch was clearly where the trendies go on a Sunday - it was full of yummy mummies and designer babies! After a short while though they mostly thinned out and the walking got easier as we weren't constantly dodging joggers and being ambushed by cyclists. (By the way, Cyclists - you know that funny shiny thing on your handlebars? it's a BELL - feckin' well ring it!)

For the first couple of miles of this section we were walking past first Richmond park, then the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. It was lovely seeing all the gorgeous green spaces, and also things like the meridian obelisks - placed there to allow for the setting up of instruments from the Kew Observatory. Just near to Twickenham Bridge MrEH spotted this odd little building...

...we've been entirely unable to find out anything about it, and there was nothing nearby to shed any light.

One notable thing about this section was the fact that we were right under the Heathrow main approach, and right through the day we had planes coming directly overhead, dropping their landing gear just as they passed us...

...at one point we finally thought we'd passed the flight path, then clearly conditions changed as everything started heading across in front of us again!

We were soon right into the heart of Boat Race country, and the number of crews out training on the river was quite surprising - I had no idea it was such a popular hobby! we were also passing underneath more and more bridges - 7 in total on this section I think, although more if you include where there are adjacent railway and road bridges. The most impressive of the bunch is probably Hammersmith bridge...

...here it is looking majestic in the late afternoon sunshine. Here you see the problem with me choosing my 50mm lens to document this walk with - it proved impossible to get a decent picture of the whole bridge! I had to settle for some nice textural detail instead...

We'd originally thought that we might only get as far as Hammersmith, depending how long this first 6 and a half miles had taken us, and how the daylight was looking. As you can see though we'd made good time and there was still bright sunshine, so we made the decision to continue to Putney. It was at about that stage that I noticed that the sole was starting to peel away from my right walking boot...not ideal this, particularly considering they were under a year old! (Subsequently to this I contacted the excellent Customer Service team at Mountain Warehouse and they told me to return the boots for a replacement or refund, the store I returned to also confirmed to me that they had not seen this problem on these boots before). Full credit to the boots for tenacity though - not only did the sole hang on until we'd finished walking, it stayed put right the way home, too! Good thing too as there was still more to see. This amazing building...

...now posh flats, and the Wildfowl & Wetland Trust's London Wetlands Centre, which we realised we were passing when we saw these chaps on the fence...

On the other side of the river meanwhile, as we stopped for the final cuppa from the flask, was Fulham FC's football ground "Craven Cottage". This used to be shortened to simply "The Cottage" but in the light of the "alternative" current use for that term the supporters now tend to prefer to use the name in full, as I understand it. ;-) (Supporters are still apparently known as "The Cottagers" however - although whether more by opposing fans than themselves, I have no idea!)

From there there was just another mile or so up to Putney, where we wasted no time in finding a pub (The Bricklayers Arms, as it happens, one of our favourites) for our traditional well-deserved beer, before heading home. Eventual walk length from bridge to bridge was 8.5 miles, and my pedometer recorded over 27,000 steps in the day! the next stretch will be walked at some stage in March.

Robyn

Thames Path - Section 1

It didn't take much consideration before we decided to do the Thames path walk from West to East. It seemed logical for several reasons 1) that way we would get the lengthier travel out of the way early on, hopefully being back within the tube network by the time we ended our second stint of walking, and 2) I felt strongly that I wanted to end the walk not only on "home turf" but also presuming we decide to walk the extension to the London section as well, which goes right to the Kent Border, at the "actual end" of the river, too. With that in mind, we set off on Sunday morning to travel across to Hampton Court - the official start of the London Section of the path. Hampton court station itself was initially full of people visiting the palace, but by the time MrEH and I had both used the loo (having no idea when we were going to find the next one) it had quietened down somewhat and a rather pretty little station was revealed. we were slightly bemused by the sign on the resident newsagent's window suggesting we might "enjoy" a hot Pot Noodle, though!

The Thames itself was higher than I can remember seeing it for a long, long while - very close to being up to the top of the arches on Hampton Court Bridge and it rapidly became clear that using the "walkers" path right down by the waters edge was not going to be an option as it was flooded right along this first stretch...

You can see where the other path runs from the line of trees and bushes, and the bench, on the right

...I'm ashamed to admit that I've never visited Hampton Court Palace in spite of knowing that it's a beautiful place - we had a quick wander around the outside and these gorgeous stone heraldic figures caught my eye...

...there were four or five each side of the main entrance - a sort of Guard of Honour!

We'd vaguely discussed where we might end up on this first section on the days preceding but hadn't really reached any sort of firm conclusion -  just ending up agreeing that we'd start walking and when we felt we'd walked far enough, we'd stop. We didn't fret about setting any sort of fast pace either - we walked until we saw something we wanted to look more closely at, stopped, looked, photographed and then carried on walking at whatever pace felt right at the time. We stopped for lunch, we got slightly confused at Kingston trying to find the continuation of the path, and visited the cashpoint while we were looking to ensure we had beer money for later. I spent quite a lot of time photographing this view...

...of Kingston Bridge through the Avenue of trees lining the path, and MrEH read the whole of the metal plaque telling the history of Kingston Bridges past and present.  We walked past lots of little Islands, some I'd heard of, and some I hadn't. Ditton Island, Raven's Ait, Trowlock Island and the largest of the lot - the fabulously named Eel Pie Island.

We'd not arrived at Hampton Court until after midday, and in between ambling, stopping for lunch etc, the light was starting to fade by the time we reached Teddington Lock but we stopped for a cup of tea (flask!) and, refreshed, we decided to go "a bit further" - as you do!  Twickenham came and went on the opposite bank - I reflected that I was surprised my feet weren't aching more. Past a little landing stage where earlier in the day we could - had we wanted, and for the princely sum of £1 each - got a ferry across to the other bank. Richmond appeared on the signpost at that stage - we looked at each other; Several decent pubs to choose from, and an easy route back via the District Line Tube, it was a no-brainer! Gradually the lights of Richmond got brighter and brighter - it was properly dark by now and we were glad of the decent path we were walking on - earlier on it had been far more potholed and muddy! Finally we reached Richmond Bridge...

...and wasted no time in finding some of this...

I'm not usually a pint-drinker but I can assure you that this one didn't last long as it felt VERY well deserved!

We'll be setting off in a few weeks to do the next stretch which we're hoping will take up to Hammersmith Bridge.

Robyn

Five favourites...

These are five favourite photos from our first London section Thames Path walk which we did yesterday. I'll blog later in the week about the walk itself, but thanks to some inspiration from Twitter I made the decision that each time we walk another chunk of the path I'll take the DSLR and just the 50mm lens with me. I love the way that restricting myself to just that one lens makes me think more, and look for different angles to get the shot I want. I'll no doubt take some pictures on the iPhone as well each time, but these are all from the "Nifty Fifty"...

Skaters on the ice rink at Hampton Court. I slowed the shutter speed right down for this to see what variation in motion blur I'd get across the differing skills of those having fun...

The "Nifty" doing what it does best - shallow depth of field. This beautiful Winter Jasmine was rioting over the brick wall around Hampton Court Palace.

A little further downriver and we spotted these three Swans. I did wonder if they'd be happy to let me get close enough to get the shot I wanted. They seemed pretty laid back though, thankfully!

More shallow depth of field - this time with the metal plaque giving the history of Kingston Bridge. For a sub-£70 lens, the 50mm really can give some incredible effects.

This completely deserted line of benches with their attendant trees caught my eye at Canbury Gardens just east of Kingston.

Robyn