DAY EIGHT: Iver to Kew Bridge

The start of this walk was horrible, the worst mile of the whole walk. Leaving Iver, it followed a series of small, heavily littered streets down to a scrap yard. A smelly little lane terminated at the base of a footbridge that crossed the iconic M25 motorway. I felt particularly sad because Kate had chosen to complete this stage of the walk with me -- what she saw in that first half hour was quite the opposite of the incredible beauty I had experienced for the previous 110 miles.



Over the noisy motorway, we entered into "Greater London". We passed a big sewage works, old empty factories and picked our way down to the Grand Union Canal. We would follow this road made of water (as they called it in the 1800's) right down to the Thames.



The canal was wider than the Oxford Union canal. I expect this was because of the heavy shipping that once traversed it. We also got an unexpected treat in terms of wildlife along the canal. We saw huge fish (can anyone tell me what it is?), heron's catching fish and, to our complete amazement, a terapin! I suppose someone decided that it had grown too big for their tank at home and set him free -- he was certainly doing well in relatively clean water of the canal.


If the wildlife was a pleasant surprise, so was the fruit! We picked a couple of pounds of delicious blackberries along the side of canal. Kate had turned my walk into a rather civilized affair, despite the industrial surroundings. There was more time to spend doing other things because I spent less time with my head in a map -- signs were-a-plenty now.


One of the more unusual sights along the way was the intersection of nearly all modes of ground transport in one place. As you can (almost) see here, you can see a railway on the ground level, an aqueduct for the canal and a road bridge spans the whole thing!


A lot of people live on boats along the canals network. Some of the barges are very pretty indeed. And some folks have obviously decided to live a different kind of life -- wonder if that tent is warm in the winter!


After a delicious packed lunch sitting on the canal lock gates, we headed further south east. It got a little confusing around the "Thames Link" canal/river, but we finally reached the Thames around mid-afternoon. The old docks had been turned into very plush residential apartments in this area and I got my first view of the city skyline.



After a couple of pints of shandy in a great pub on the river bank near Kew Bridge, I said goodbye to Kate at Kew railway station. I caught the tube to Chelsea, where my gracious friend Tom had arranged for me to stay the night. It was a very odd sensation being among so many people again, especially in such a busy, loud, crowded city like London. Quite the culture shock!


I couldn't quite believe that I had walked to London. The rest of the walk would be along the Thames to the Globe Theater.