LOOP Day 1: Erith – Bexley

A new walk begins today, but I start with a strange feeling of déjà vu. I had definitely been here before. Almost two years ago to be precise when I started the Thames Path (Extension). So I arrive on a overcast but largely dry Sunday morning at Erith railway station. The train disgorges me right by the exit gate from the station, so I’m able to get going straight away.

The first task is to negotiate the roads near the station and get myself to the small riverside gardens. There seems to be attempt after attempt to beautify the town, but they all seem half hearted attempts and the abandoned swimming pool building, with windows smashed out, doesn’t help. Later I come across the new retail development that has found its way here since my last visit. But even this doesn’t seem like to retain is youthful looks for long.

The gardens are a short lived affair, but it provides the first opportunity to see the Thames, which at this point is very wide and feeling like the seaside. Then there are more road junctions to tackle, followed by a long slog down a road that leads to lots of riverside industrial site, many linked to gravel extraction. But soon some green looms up ahead and the salt marshes around Crayford Ness are in touching distance. Down another track and onto the to raised walkway that will take me to the mouth of the River Darent. There’s not a soul around, bar a group of five or six yoofs sat on a bench. A couple of them have bikes, one the pedal variety, the other a large engined scrambler. I can hear the sound of motorbike engines as well, but it’s a long way off and fortunately turns out to be on an organised course on the opposite bank of the Darent.

At the mouth of the Darent the path heads ‘inland’, then shortly after the same path follows the River Cray, which will form the focal point of the route for the rest of today and for much of stage two. The tide was out all along this stretch leaving a little bit of water at the bottom of a deep muddy channel. Soon, its time to negotiate some more industrial areas and then roads again. In between there is some willow lined riverside walking, but this is short lived as there are more roads and major junctions to cross at Crayford.

Eventually, just after a Mazda garage, I arrive at a park. A lot of Sunday morning football games are underway, and I skirt round and head back down to the river Cray. The book that describes the London LOOP explains that nearby you can visit Hall Place and Gardens, but there’s lots of development work going on here and it's clear that restoration work is well underway. So I continue, over the bridge and towards the railway line. Now I need to cross the railway and pass under the A2 which involves a protracting weaving around line and road bridges. But eventually I’m through, and now on a very pleasant woodland walk, the most attractive part of the whole walk. In the densely pack wood, there is a good crop of bluebells in full bloom. Then it’s a short walk down a walkway into the centre of Old Bexley, past the church.

A quick trip home via Bexley railway station proved impossible. No trains due to engineering work! So it’s a bus trip back to Erith, just as the rain starts to pour.

It’s got to be said, I’ve neglected this blog for some time. It’s not that I’ve found it difficult to maintain. It’s not even that I’ve given up walking the Thames Path. It’s just I forgot about it really.

So now I’m posting another entry, this time to say that I have now finished the Thames Path. It has taken approximately two years, which is nothing to brag about. Only the other week the winner of the London Marathon did it in just over 2 hours. And at that pace he’d have done the Path is around 16 hours! But, as anyone who knows me will testify, I’m no marathon runner. But doing the Thames Path has allowed me to rediscover walking.

I’ve always enjoyed walking. As a child I would regularly go walking with my parents, particularly on our holidays, usually in Scotland. But as a student and then a fully employed adult, my walking boots tended to get a little dusty.

The Thames Path has reinvigorated all that. I'm pleased to get it finished. The latter stages, west of Oxford, had to be done in groups with one car left in villages at the start and end of the day’s walk. The landscape in this part of the world is very flat, which to be fair surprised me, but still made for a pleasant walk. The stage immediately after Lechlade, which involved a long walk down for a mile down an A road, and a distinct lack of riverside walking and was consequently the least enjoyable.

However, there was a real sense of achievement arriving at the source, marked by a some stones on the ground, a tree and a lump of granite left by the Thames Conservators, but whose plaque is getting tricky to read. I would recommend that anyone doing this lack stage should park at The Thames Head pub. Once you’ve finished you just need to retrace your steps and for a couple of field lengths, then turn right and head up the hill to the railway track. Carefully cross the track (it is allowed at this point) then turn immediately left over the stile and follow the track alongside the railway until it drops down to the main road. The pub is then just up to the right. It’s not the best of pubs, but on a cool day it was got to stop for a celebratory coffee and banoffee pie! (The better pub to stop for lunch is The Wild Duck in Ewen, just a short diversion from the Path.)

So that is the Thames Path. What next?

Well I paid a visit to Waterstones and have purchased a couple of books for other long distance paths in the South. The first is the more challenging Ridgeway. Like the Thames Path, most of The Ridgeway is accessible from home, albeit by car rather than public transport. I’ll do this, but will have to use the same method adopted for the west of Oxford sections of the Thames Path. However, the other one that is intriguing me, that can be done by public transport is the London LOOP. This starts at Erith, along part of the Thames Path Extension.

In addition I’ll be doing plenty of circular walks, some picked up from books, others from the excellent Country Walking magazine, and some just made up after a perusal of a OS map. And I’ll try to right about them here.