Saturday 19 April 2008

Hampton Court to Osterley, Thames Towpath, via Syon Park – (Surrey) – 30/01/08 – 11 miles approx – myself

This being the first walk of its kind that I have actually done on my own. A combination of still being miffed about my towpath cock up on the previous walk, and an incredibly bright January day found me making an unplanned leap out of bed to do this one. So as before the start point was the 111 bus, only this time coming off at Hampton Court Bridge to pick up the towpath there. Three quarters of an hour later I had made it to Kingston Bridge, and earned my first coffee stop, the next one coming in the shadow of the Star and Garter.

Following the written instructions on the Walk London website http://www.walklondon.org.uk/ I crossed the river at Twickenham Bridge, and through a variety of on/off road twists and turns, entered Syon Park. This however was a real disappointment as the interesting parts of the park are fenced off to the public, with all access designed to lead straight to their pay to enter house and pay to enter visitors centre. Once through there however I was back on the road in Brentford, reaching Osterley exactly 3 hours after starting at Hampton Court Bridge.

Two obsevations about doing a walk like this on your own are: you have more time to observe and reflect on the scenery around, and you walk so much faster.

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