Hammersmith to Lots Road

As promised, here are some more pictures from my long walk Saturday along the Thames. We're backing up just a bit to begin in Hammersmith, just before the Hammersmith Bridge (which you can see in the background). There are lots of pubs along the waterfront in West London and I fully intend to go back with Dave and the dog to enjoy a pint or two at those outdoor tables!

I watched a couple of swans nibbling in the river mud. This one was walking toward the water when it sat down for a rest. I imagine that fine, silty mud is pretty hard to walk in -- it must add a lot of extra weight to their feet.

After circling the Craven Cottage football stadium, which I mentioned yesterday, the path led me past Bishop's Park and Fulham Palace and then beneath the Putney Bridge, shown here.

There's a mosaic nearby commemorating the Oxford-Cambridge boat race, "the world's longest surviving sporting challenge." It began in 1829.

I walked on, circling Hurlingham Park and passing the relatively ugly Wandsworth Bridge. The path got a bit dicey here, because there's so much construction in that area that the directions on the map didn't match what was happening on the ground. I simply stuck to the river as best I could until I got to an area of new apartments near the old Lots Road Power Station, and then I found myself at a dead end.

Across the river I could see a beach in Battersea that I visited more than ten years ago. Back then it was littered with trash but it looks like it's been cleaned up. All the dead sneakers have been removed from the chains along that concrete wall. I think the Thames Path might take me through that area when I walk back along the south shore of the river.

Anyway, being at a dead end near Lots Road, I decided to call it quits there. My dogs were barking, as the expression goes. (In other words, my feet were killing me.)

I stopped at a corner pub for a well-deserved pint and sat on a bench outside in the sun behind some orange traffic barriers, watching a surprising number of pedestrians and passing vehicles given that this used to be a pretty remote industrial area (before all the new construction). There are still signs of that industrial past, like the old power station (now being renovated into something else) and the borough of Kensington and Chelsea's vehicle impoundment lot, right across the street from the pub.

I then made the short walk (or limp, in my case!) along Lots Road to nearby Gunter Grove, where I caught the 328 bus all the way back to West Hampstead. Pretty darn convenient.