Walking the River Pinn

The river Pinn runs from Pinner to the Grand Union Canal at Cowley, 12 miles in all. Pinner is classic 'Metroland', a sterile suburban high street and an old village green, church and a couple of 17th C. pubs.

The route from there runs through an amazingly long stretch of interlinked playing fields, meadows and woodland. Parts of the walk are very badly signposted and there are two major diversions, RAF Hillingdon and Brunel University.

We stopped for a pint at the Red Lion Hotel, a splendid looking Fullers pub overlooking Hillingdon Hill. Not a great selection of beers on offer, in fact one of the worst selections i've seen in a while, Carling, Stella, Strongbow, Guinness and three real ales! but then maybe i've been spoiled?

And then on to the finish at Cowley, according to most of the posts on BITE, a chav lager drinking paradise! didn't hang around to find out, got the train to Paddington and had a cheap pint in 'Cads', all the pints are 1.90!!!

Bexley or bust!!!

Ventured into deepest darkest south-east London recently to do the 'Cray Riverway' walk, 10.5 miles from Foots Cray Meadows to Erith on the Thames.

It was a lovely day and the walk was flat and easy.

An hour into the walk I stopped to have breakfast in Old Bexley Village, no bubble on the menu but I did have a passable veggie breakfast. Old Bexley has a nice old fashioned High Street and a lovely church and church yard.

From here the walk led to Crayford, 'the land that time forgot!!' and then on to Crayford and Dartford Marshes, the River Darent, and Erith on the Thames, which looked quite spectacular with the 'Queen Elizabeth II' bridge in the background. Can't say much for Erith, depressing and full of scaffolders!!!

A Sojourn around Southwark on a Sunday with a Scouser!

My scouse mate Mark is an avid walker, so with both of us having nothing better to do and the sun shining we decided to head of towards Tring and meander towards Wendover. But alas, we missed our train from Euston and the next wasn't for another hour. We decided to walk down to the Thames and into deepest Bermondsey and Rotherhithe, a fabled land home of the scaffolder!
We stopped at the 'Angel', a Sam Smith's pub on the river and then at the 'Mayflower' in so called Rotherhithe Village. This is a lovely part of London, very calming and evocative. We then walked to 'Stave Hill Ecological Park, a great place with a man made hill with a view across docklands. From here we walked to GreenLand Dock and stopped for a pint in the 'Wibbley Wobbley' floating pub, a gem of a place full of locals and other eccentrics.
A lovely walk and a great day out.