Tag Archives: explore london

city walking, wandering

London’s most industrial walk

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August is ending.  Summer is ending.  New jobs are starting. Sounds like a perfect reason to walk from Rainham to Purfleet.

If I offered walking tours in all possible genres, I’d be crafting itineraries for London’s most industrial walks this week. Rainham to Purfleet is one of those little magical ways which perfectly combines the exploratory feel of your childhood with the quiet epicness of your 20s. But even more importantly, it really opens up an alternative route for flâneuring in London, giving you a chance to walk past pallet factories, odd black cats, concrete barges, soft mud rivershores and even Europe’s first wind turbine park. Not to mention the apocalyptic Rainham Marshes with the grazing cows and Eurostar trains speeding away in the background, through the pylon forests.

long distance walking

Alternative London postcards. Walking the LOOP 3,4,5/24: Harold Wood to Purfleet.

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Name: London Outer Orbital Path

Walk: 3-5 of 24

Route: Harold Wood to Upminster Bridge (section 22), Upminster Bridge to Rainham (section 23), Rainham to Purfleet (section 24)

Date & Distance: Tuesday, 05.07.2017; 28.3 K

Fellow walkers: K.

What to expect from this part of LOOP/Essex?

So, woop-woop – 19 sections done out of 24! 🙂 Less than 200 km to go!

I must say that I did not have any expectations when entering this part of the LOOP, but oh, did it never stop to surprise us. What to expect of the sections 22-24 of the LOOP, then?

  • All sorts of very specific or motivating signs.
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The first item in the list to follow mentioned “appropriate clothing”
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Sometimes all you need for that motivation is a hole in the right fence.
If someone ever tells you to walk the walk… it is in Essex.
  • Signs of fairy life
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Who lives here?
  • Pets less common.
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Yup, that’s a goat all right.
  • That unmistakable feel of childhood (cross-overs from marshes to industrial zones)
Hornchurch country park
Rainham marshes
Rainham marshes
  • Art that looks like something out of Dr Who

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So far, my definite favourite part of the LOOP. Let’s see what the rest of the 19 sections bring!

city walking

Where did we walk in February? Bushy Park.

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Walk in Bushy Park. London/Richmond upon Thames. February 2016.
Walk in Bushy Park. London/Richmond upon Thames. February 2016.

February is the dark month of my heart. It is a busy month between seasons where you can only guess and wonder about the next change. On February 28, we all set out for a stroll in London’s second largest Royal Park, Bushy Park (located in London Borough of Richmond upon Thames).

We were all a bit quiet that day, somehow still getting used to the fact that also this time, the winter didn’t fully get us.

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We saw birds hammering away at the ground, saw daffodils and crocuses stretching themselves out, the sun playing a childish game of sorts and the rose bushes holding on to their closed blossoms. No deer, though.

But it was going to be all right, once again.

All Februaries are difficult in a similar manner: they are filled with heavy waiting. There’s no space left for anything else. I believe their purpose is to make any March feel light, raw and liberating. Which is exactly what happened this year, when walking across the Rannoch Moor just a couple of weeks ago.

I wish I was built in a way that I could see miracles everywhere. I am not. But I’m giving my everyday best to seek them out and to lift some folded covers.

The next post on Institute of Wander will be about walking the moors. Luckily, those places are never short of magic.