River Wandle Trail

Time for a new walk. Having completed the Capital Ring in late summer 2020 (after COVID lockdown restrictions had been lifted), and with the July 2021 weather looking good, I found myself in need of another long’ish walk – something I could get to/from by train (as there is less social distancing on underground and buses).

This handy site (https://londonist.com/london/the-london-walker-s-tube-map) showed me that although I have walked many routes in the London area, there remain some yet to be tackled.

Based on proximity and train access, I decided to walk the River Wandle Trail, starting at the Thames in Wandsworth, i.e. walking in reverse against the flow. The 20km (14 mile) Wandle Trail follows the route of the River Wandle and this reverse direction goes from to the Thames at Wandsworth to Croydon. Although I have been out taking short walks every day, I have not had a long’ish walk for nearly a year, so I’m going to tackle this in a few sections and see how far I get each day.

Section 1

This section ended up being just over 6 miles in length (3/7 of the total) – I might have gone a bit further but my Achilles tendon was playing up and I needed to be sure of making it to a train station.

Section 2

This second half was a bit longer (8 miles) and the weather was different – it rained or drizzled most of the time. The photos from the walk have somehow been lost and as it was rather dreary, perhaps this is not too great a loss.