Day Six

Saturday 31 October -
Swanley to Royal Albert

No special skill was needed to leave Swanley. Following the railway Westwards on an enclosed footpath, I quickly went under the A20 and reached fields. The day was grey, but I had no rain. A footbridge took me across the railway, and then things went slightly haywire.

The footpath shown on the map would have gone through a huge heap of of building rubble, but a path slightly further on looked promising. After a bit of GPS and map work I found the road I was aiming for, struck off across fields again, and got lost again. Nothing drastic - I soon reached the safe environment of a bungalow estate in St Mary Cray. I self-consciously pocketed my GPS and map.

A mile or so of suburbia led me into Scadbury Nature Reserve and three-quarters of an hour of traffic-free walking (hurray!). I passed a group of people being put through their paces by a zealous leader. Two women were sentenced to three sprints each up the hill I was puffing my way up at walking pace; it made me quite tired to watch them. As I crossed fields on the outskirts of Chislehurst, I startled some exotic birds, bright green and looking like parrots. At the same time, the dull crump of gunfire began in the distance. Parrot hunters? Small patches of blue sky were starting to appear.

As I was about to enter a housing estate, a fox passed me in an adjoining field, Glancing uneasily back at me, it loped off into some scrubby woodland, It needn’t have worried - the seven foot fence was ample protection from the likes of me.

More road walking through Longlands and New Eltham, then I picked up one of the Green Chain Walks. The Green Chain is a little bit of magic. In 1977 the magicians, four London boroughs and the Greater London Council, got together to create a network of paths, starting in three places on the Thames and finishing at Crystal Palace. The technique – stringing together footpaths across parks, commons and other green spaces, with as little road walking as possible - has since been adopted by other routes such as the Capital Ring (which indeed shares part of its route with the Green Chain). With route guides and maps freely available, with good signage and transport links clearly indicated, it’s easy for Londoners to find a short or a long walk without the need for poring over the A to Z.

An enclosed footpath between Charlton Athletic’s training ground (supply your own joke) and the University of Greenwich sports ground led to Avery Hill Park. Football matches were in full swing, but I found a bench in a quieter bit of the park for the next item of business - lunch.

The Green Chain, now joined by the Capital Ring, wove its cunning way towards a highlight of the day’s walk, Oxleas Wood. One of the oldest pieces of woodland remaining in London (6,000 years old, according to the interpretation board). Although you never quite lose the background noise of traffic, somehow the place still seems completely tranquil.

Apart from its natural delights, the area has another jewel, a rightly-popular café. After a welcome mug of coffee (no cake, how abstemious of me), I followed the waymarked walk through the former rose garden of Castlewood House, soon reaching Severndroog Castle. Named after an Indian fortress, this semi-derelict tower was erected in memory of Commodore Sir William James by his widow. In the Eighteenth Century, Sir William owned the land hereabouts. Crossing Eltham Common, Shooters Hill and the South Circular Road, I reached Woolwich Common. Here I left the Green Chain and the Capital Ring (bound like me for Woolwich Foot Tunnel but by a roundabout route) to take a direct route through the centre of Woolwich to the Thames. A bit late in the day, the sun was now quickly burning off the clouds, and I was walking in shirtsleeves.

Saturday shopping in Woolwich was being disrupted by pavement “improvements”, so I took my place in a queue of shoppers snaking their way through an obstacle course of barriers and holes, before escaping to the riverside.

The entrance to the Woolwich Foot Tunnel is hidden behind a leisure centre. Spurning the lift, I trotted down the spiral staircase, echoed my way through the tunnel, and climbed 126 steps (I counted) on the other side of the river.

Walking West alongside the old railway to North Woolwich (superseded by the Docklands Light Railway, DLR), I couldn’t help contrasting the abandoned warehouses and derelict pubs with the sleek signs for the London City Airport.

A footbridge beneath a busy road (complete with Swing Bridge) took me across Royal Albert Dock. As I turned East towards the Royal Albert DLR station, I picked up a well-deserved bottle of pop and a chocolate bar from a trailer-café. I enjoyed the incongruous sight of rowing eights practising on the water, with jet aircraft blinking in the background, before catching a train back into town.