Across London following the Thames

I'm one for believing that you should continually strive for goals. The pursuit of goal helps us develop. I learnt a couple of years ago that there is a path along the River Thames both north of the river and south of the river. Since then I've always been intrigued as to how I would walk the length of the river. Given some time off in the summer of 2016 i thought it was worthwhile giving it a shot. It has been a few months since I last tried long walk along the South Down's Way.

The Thames Path

I started my Thames Path journey at the Thames Barrier with a view to walk as far west as i could, my target was Kingston upon Thames. Primarily for the ease of being picked up close to home. I started early around 8am and my time limit was 12 hours of walking maximum.

As with all (great) endeavours that start out in excitement, the actual task of walking the Thames Path is as dull as dishwater. The first 10 kilometres consist of walking through industrial estates and the path is sparsely populated. With the occasional cyclist flying by me as my feet thumped across London.

Thing become vaguely interesting as you approach Tower Bridge the starting point of the most worthwhile segment for the river. The bridges come thick and fast and the crowds increase. While the crowds and tourists reach their peak between Tower Bridge and Waterloo they are a welcome change from the monotony of walking.

Once you pass Battersea Park you begin counting the distance between the bridges and start thinking about your target. Strangely the Thames's meanders mean that whilst you're walking a long distance you're not actually covering a huge amount of ground. You can see from the curls of the line above that large curls in the river mean you can be looking at the same things for hours.

I did eventually decide to call in quits in Richmond primarily due to the call of nature and my pace of walking had decreased and going on to Kingston would have means another few hours. Maybe I will complete it a different day by as a first outing I was satisfied with the curls on my Nike+

In total I walked 46.60kms along the river it took me 9 hours. Not counting the walking between station and starting point and the struggle to find a washroom in Richmond. Thank god for Odeon Cinemas.