The band / DJs Above and Beyond made this warm-up set for their Drumshed (below) gig later that night ( which I didn't go to).
You might recognise some of the locations from my Lea Valley walk over the summer as this video was shot on the Lee Navigation heading north from the Olympic park.
This walk is pretty much tourist heaven as it goes past site after site, including:
So you won't be short of things to see and photograph.
There'll also be no shortage of places to stop for an ice cream, which was jolly useful given the day I walked it (a few weeks ago) was the hottest day of the year so far.
There was lots of opportunities to think about statues and the current debate about suitability. One that caught my eye in Hyde Park was celebrating the Cavalry of the Empire. This might have had meaning in Victorian London but now sounds deeply anachronistic.
High spot was the latest Pavilion at the Serpentine Gallery. This is a structure that is put up in the same place but each year with a different architect. In this case there was also a soothing soundscape called "In a Garden" from Brian Eno - plus shade and ice creams, which were a very tempting combination.
There was a bit of hacking the backstreets from Hyde Park to Paddington and a rapid drop in social status from smart and elegant Embassies to a mess of betting shops and kebab restaurants.
Here I picked up the spur of the Regent's Canal for the final push to Little Venice:
I then back-tracked to Paddington tube via a newly opened entrance by the canal.
Why no picture of Paddington Bear, you might ask? Well the statue has been moved from the station itself to canal side where it was well and truly covered by various children.
So instead here's another tourist favourite:
As I took this photo I overheard a boy ask his mum "Where's the Queen?"
"She's busy, inside" he was told.
He wasn't satisfied.
"Could you ring her up and ask her to come outside?" he asked.
Alas it wasn't to be his lucky day.
For me it was a two ice cream day, which is good enough for me:
On the map above the bits I'd done are marked in red and the bit in orange was the only segment not completed. So you can guess what I did next.
In total there were the following sections:
It's mostly either through parks or along canals or rivers, so definitely worth adding the Jubilee Greenway to your list of London walks.
This is the Midnight Sun (geddit?) from Saffier Yachts and was absolutely lovely to sail and look at, designed to provide the best day sail experience.
Just before lunch, to give us an appetite, we went for a swim in Chichester Harbour. This was very refreshing and it was probably just as well we hadn't read this article about sewage outflows in the press.
So having my first lesson on a canal seemed like the ideal solution. Any not just any canal, this was the Regent's Canal here in London.
I signed up with Paddle Boarding London at their base in the Pirate Castle (that's really what it's called, check it out here) in trendy Camden. Here were given life jackets and a paddle and shown how to move from sitting to standing and back down again.
Soon we were out and after five minutes of paddling sitting down, were encouraged to stand up. And remarkably I did and managed to go for the rest of the 90 minute session without falling in (unlike one other, who returned soaked after a dunking).
A lot of the paddle strokes were familiar to anyone who's done some kayaking or canoeing. There was some passing traffic in narrow-boats and self-hire electric launches (from GoBoat Paddington), but they typically slowed down and gave a friendly hello.
Must admit I was very, very slow. I might try again to see if the balance improves and I can get a bit of speed up. Afterwards, on my home, I dropped in on my brother for a cup of tea, and it turned out that he and one of my nephews were also very slow.
A fun afternoon!
Almost as exciting as the bridge opening was it closing, as recently it got jammed in the open position.
Then it was time to go home - by Thames Clipper with its great views:
The past of the Lea Valley is one of industry, such as Three Mills above, using the power of the river to grind wheat. That led to conflicts over water and the development of the Lee Navigation with its guaranteed depths of water to allow barges to transport goods.
As the industrial revolution kicked in, the area became more and more developed, from iron works to rockets. But then there was deindustrialisation and heavy industry was left to decay:
What remains are mostly faceless buildings that could contain anything from a server farm to a cutting edge performance space:
At the heart of the story of the Lea Valley in the 21st Century is the Olympics and Paralympics during that glorious summer of 2012:
Such happy memories from what now feels long, long ago, before the Brexit battles and Covid.
One of the buzz words of London's Olympic bid was 'legacy': what hosting the games would do for this part of the city. How much the Olympics actually made a difference is one for future historians, but there can be no doubt as to the regeneration that is now on display.
All up and down the Lea, centred on the Olympics Park and Stratford, are countless building sites, with new stations, colourful new apartment blocks, museums and performing spaces:
London is expanding east. It needs all these new homes, for its population has just exceeded nine million. This regeneration is generally to be welcomed: land is too precious to be wasted and there is space and housing for thousands upon thousands, with opportunities for green spaces, colleges, museums and the arts.
But there are casualties of gentrification, with some arguing that too many of these new apartments are priced out of the budgets of locals.
There's also been questions out on the Lea itself, with protests from the narrowboat owners. I hope a compromise can be found where the Lee Navigation will have less of the feel of a trailer park or scrapyard, so that in the future the banks are not one long line of boats, sometimes doubled up, blocking views of the water:
The water quality too requires more work, for the Environment Agency must live up to its name and not allow the continued over-extraction and pollution of Britain's rivers and waterways:
Yes, the Thames Tideway Tunnel is a good thing, but it's not enough. It wouldn't stop the flow of sewage I saw into the brooks of Meridian Water or Southern Water's pollution at Whitstable.
We need a new Bazalgette, someone driven to improve the waters of England, as was done at the Abbey Mills pumping station and all its supporting tunnels:
I can certainly recommend the Lea Valley Walk, in particular around the Olympic park and Three Mills, though all parts (apart from the Greenway) have their attractions.
It's a good way to learn about London's past and where this great city is heading.
After my rather boring walk down the Greenway, ending up at the North Woolwich ferry terminal, I decided to take a more scenic route back on first the Woolwich Ferry and then Thames Clipper (both above).
I hadn't had a chance to go on the brand new Woolwich Ferries, though I've blogged before about travelling on the old ones. These ones seemed to have a lot less space for passengers - though it might have been Covid restrictions. There just seemed to be rows of seats like this:
This reduction in space might be because there are fewer passengers due to the DLR and foot tunnel.
But over we went, with lovely views upriver to the Thames Barrier and beyond to the towers of docklands:
At Woolwich there was a short walk to the Thames Clipper pier where I found quite a queue. But soon we were off, zooming along as normal, up past the O2 Arena, Greenwich and then Tower Bridge:
At City Pier I disembarked and made my way along the South Bank.
A late lunch was a Korean Bao bun from Borough Market, then an ice cream outside the Globe Theatre, and finally a fruit drink from a stand behind the Festival Hall. Entertainment included a singer, a dancer, a juggler and the usual people watching.
It felt a very, very long way from the Beckton Sewage works where I'd been only a few hours previously.
London felt buzzing: almost normal again:
Time for some final thoughts about the Lea Valley explorations, in the next post.
I've encountered the Greenway before the Lea Valley walks, in particular on leaving the Olympic Stadium after the amazing Paralympics Closing Ceremony and later to get to / from the Abbey Mills pumping station when exploring Bazalgette's sewage system, as blogged here.
The close proximity of the Greenway with the Abbey Mills pumping station is not a coincidence. The old name for this route was the Sewerbank, as it basically is build on top of huge sewers taking waste down to the Beckton Sewage works. As well as Bazalgette's sewers, underneath that there's the new Lee Tunnel, part of the Thames Tideway project.
Must admit I found it a bit boring, as most of the time it was an almost dead straight line, like those roads in the desert, but rather than dramatic desert scenery there were housing and industrial estates on either side.
At one point there was an observation point, and I wondered what vista I would see, for apparently Gandhi when he came to London used to walk the Sewerbank and he "enjoyed the elevated view the bank offered".
But in this case the view turned out to be another industrial estate - plus of course the path itself:
High spots were mostly at the start, including an old pillbox, the Lee Navigation and the Abbey Mills pumping station:
The original plan had been to end at either Beckton or Gallions Reach DLR stations, but the route had been so boring that I decided to extend it to Woolwich North and take a ferry then Thames Clipper for the scenic route home...
The keen eyed might spot that the structure above was blogged about previously during the Erith to Greenwich walk back in 2014 when Boris was London's Mayor.
It was a moody, cloudy day that I returned to Meridian Water for this week's 11.7 km hike:
TBH, not sure that Meridian Water is the best place to split the journey as Tottenham Hale has a lot better transport (e.g. the Victoria Line). But I ended there last time and it meant could do the final stretch in one go.
This time avoided the North Circular nightmare and went the back route, but even it wasn't that pretty. For example, this functional ditch is meant to be a "brook":
Anyhow, crossed via a bridge over to the tow path and headed north along the Lee Navigation.
It was the day of the Lea Valley 50k, so there was a steady stream of runners heading south. As the morning went by it was noticeable how more and more were walking rather than running. There were also cyclists heading in both directions:
The scenery was a bit industrial, with warehouses on one side of the Lee Navigation and boats on the other:
There were also power plants and long lines of electricity pylons followed the Lee Navigation, so many I've saved them for another post.
On one side, hidden from view, were London's vast water reservoirs, and they did seem to attract wildlife, for often the main sounds were bird song and the crawk of the heron:
Finally, traffic noise could be heard ahead, and the Lee Navigation went under the M25:
I decided to call it a day at Waltham Cross and decided to head for the best restaurant I could find for lunch, which turned out to be KFC.
After a finger licking meal, I made my way to the railways station, which still within the remit of London Transport so could just tap to enter, and made my way home.
