I joined my workmate, Pete, who is walking the Capital Ring this week, for the final day of his jouney, on the North East quarter from Stoke Newington to Woolwich. This is an interesting stretch, the first part following the Lea, before winding through the under construction Olympic Park into the East End. From here we followed the Green Way into the docks area, which has a strange mix of shiny new builds and very dodgy looking docksides.
Our final stretch took us under the river through the foot tunnel to the finish, which was somewhat anticlimactic as the final signpost was surrounded with boarding. We had one more escapade as we walked up to the pub I remembered finishing the Thames Path at, and to take in the Thames barrier, both of which were further upriver than I recalled and involved getting lost a couple of times!
This was one of the final days of the March heatwave, a series of gloriously sunny days which we thought would last forever, excellent for this kind of a walk (Pete was very lucky!). Sadly a drought was announced a few days later and it rained for most of the rest of the year.