Monday 29 December 2014

Walking off the Christmas excess!

John, Tony (one of our friends) and I have been walking the Capital Ring, which is a walking route of 78 miles (125 km)  around London. Last year we completed the London Loop which is 150 miles around outer London. Today we had arranged to walk the penultimate section of the ring and hopefully we will complete the whole ring on Friday 2nd January. 

The section we walked today was from Grove Park to Crystal Palace, a distance of approximately 8.2 miles. Today in London the weather was dry but cold which is great for walking. The fun bit with the Capital ring is that it takes you through the city and you discover lots of green open spaces that you didn't know existed.


As you can see the sun was shining and in the background you can see the towers of Canary Wharf. A little further on we entered The Downham Woodland walk. This runs for about a mile along a narrow strip of woodland that is a remnant of the Great North Wood. This was a vast oak forest that stretched 7 miles from Croydon to Deptford before London expanded.


Whilst walking along this path I noticed this pile of beautiful frosty oak leaves.


We walked through Beckenham Place Park, where we stopped to eat our lunch.


and another open space which I missed the name of


until we finally arrived at Crystal Palace Park. Here we saw a cute gorilla,


and  various types of dinosaurs,





Although I have lived in London since 1972 I have never visited the dinosaurs at Crystal Palace.  Some of them are looking a little tired but they are still fun and the children running round looking for them found them fascinating.

There is also the crystal palace tower which is the main television transmitter for the London area, 

Just one more section to walk on Friday.  The walk will have helped to take off some of my Christmas chocolates. Now I have some time this evening to get on with a little stitching. That would make it a perfect day. I also need to plan out my projects for 2015. Not that I'll stick to the plan but I love the idea of being all organised.

I hope you've had a good Monday.

Lyndsey

6 comments:

  1. What a lovely place for walking! I love the shot of the frosty oak leaves . . . very pretty! I hope you got some good stitching time in!! :)

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  2. I went to primary school in Downham but never heard of the woodland walk. I live a couple of miles away now and find the walk through Eltham and Mottingham very interesting because of the royal history.

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  3. What a perfect day for a walk! Isn't it great to come across new places too? The Capital Ring sounds like a great resource to have on your doorstep, and a great way to discover London.

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  4. Wonderful photography, always so nice to see other parts of the world. You always make it so interesting.

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  5. I love sharing your walking experiences vicariously. I didn't recognise most of the place names today; except Crystal Palace. Isn't that where Baden-Powell held a Scout rally and some girls turned up, hence the beginnings of the Guide movement with his sister, Olave, in charge?

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