Thames Path 05 - Thames Barrier to Erith

To help walk off the New Year's Eve indulgences we planned the next stage of our Thames Path walk. The idea had been to walk the eight miles from Staines to Windsor and Eton Riverside but flooding caused by recent rains had other ideas. Instead we went for the recently opened extension from the Thames Barrier downstream to the River Darent.

Lynn, John, Ros, Bob Mark (me), Mary

The route took us past Thamesmead (mostly social housing developments built in the late 1960s) and Crossness Pumping Station (a sewage pumping station designed by engineer Sir Joseph Bazalgette at the eastern end of the Southern Outfall Sewer). The latter is a Grade I listed building and looks like a must see for fans of steam engines and Victorian engineers. Write up of the route: http://www.thames-path.org.uk/thames_charlton_crayford.html

It was a glorious sunny day as we set off and stayed that way. The one downside of this stretch was the absence of anything other than housing and industrial estates; no shops and no pubs for our normal lunch stop. As a result we kept walking and, after nearly three hours uninterrupted walking, decided to call it a day and peeled off at Erith for the train home.

Distance this leg 13.2 km
Previous legs 105.4 km
Total so far 118.6 km