A day of two walks, neatly sandwiching some low standard but high flair College netball.
The first was a brief and fairly dull affair in Essex, starting in Barkingside and doing the lower side of the Central Line loop, most of which consisted of plodding along the Eastern Avenue and trying to make sure where I was walking was pedestrian friendly. In fairness, the area is actually quite nice, although the drizzle that followed me about precluded me from really enjoying the surroundings.
The less said about the netball, the better. Though congratulations to the eventual winners, and superstar Rob Sinclair who bagged the winning goal. Or whatever you call them in netball...
The second walk was the third in my three-part extra walking series which I can now reveal (without too much excitement) was in fact me correcting earlier laziness on my part. Long, long ago when I first walked the Jubilee Line (with an injured foot) I surmised that it would be impossible to traverse the Thames between Canning Town/North Greenwich/Canary Wharf/Canada Water. How wrong I was. With the aid of three very clean and attractive tunnels, I was able to walk under the river vaguely near each tube line (today's final walk being a particularly wide interpretation of 'vaguely').
The first short walk was between Canada Water and Canary Wharf, and saw me use the Rotherhithe Tunnel. I advise all other walkers not to. Signs noting the presence of noxious fumes and warning pedestrians 'not to loiter' sum up the dingy mile-and-a-half long car tunnel perfectly, and while it was an experience to go through it I hope it is one I will not need to repeat again any time soon. Adventurous.
The second was far more pleasant, from CW to North Greenwich. This, excitingly, involved a walk past my own house before passing down the Isle Of Dogs to Island Gardens, where can be found the Greenwich foot tunnel. Unsurprisingly, this links the area to Greenwich, a lovely town with a huge park (and an observatory) as well as numerous impressive naval buildings I had neither the time nor inclination to take a closer look at, save for a few photos. I had a public companies workshop to get to after all.... The walk from there to the Millenium Dome (or 'O2') was pretty dull after that, although that structure itself is obviously impressive.
Finally, today's walk, kindly accompanied by who else but JC. And I suspect he will live to regret it. For to get between Canning Town and North Greenwich requires a 3 mile walk to Woolwich to take the foot tunnel there which is only open from 8pm onwards, followed by a 3 mile walk back along the river. The industrial estate we passed through on the north bank was dire, despite featuring Tate and Lyle amongst a wide number of factories and depressing buildings. We even thought we'd struck gold when we found 'Loveworld TV' but it turned out to be a Christian Televesion Network. Which is what we had hoped for of course...
Having gone under the river, the south bank was more pleasant, although I'm not sure how it could have been any worse. We stopped off in another large warehouse area for a meal at a well known fast food purveyor (seemingly the only option), then pressed on through the dark to the Dome once more. The Jubilee Line is now well and truly, and properly, done. And I have 4 days left on the Central. Marvelous.
Apologies for those hoping for my confidential walks to be more racy. If you were, you probably haven't been paying close attention to the rest of my postings.
Night
No comments:
Post a Comment