Weather: Windy and cool but
dry
Distance: 15km (9.3miles) Total
Distance: 2216miles
I
had to go to our paint factory at Silvertown, East London, to discus some environmental matters. The meeting was at 9 o’clock and I dreaded
getting stuck in the rush hour traffic so set off very early at 5.30am from Coventry. I went a new way for me, along to Cambridge
and down the M11. It was fine but even at that hour the traffic near the
factory at the end of the M11 was very bad.
I got there at 7.30am so left the car at the factory and walked up the
road to get a coffee from the garage.
The meeting turned out to be quite short and was over by 10.30am. I got changed in the toilet in the reception
area and walked from the factory rather than try to get closer to Woolwich.
Walking past the sugar refineries and new rail links I got to Woolwich ferry
terminal no trouble.
North
Woolwich seemed an isolated little community cut off from the rest of London by
new road developments. Heading north I passed the end of the runway for London
City Airport being visited by a group of schoolchildren – a real fun day
out! It looked to be threatening rain
all day but actually kept dry. I had to
cut all the way inland to the A13 before I could head east again.
I came to overtake a woman struggling with four bags of shopping and offered her a hand and almost to my surprise she accepted
– I thought all Londoners were too afraid to enter into any kind of
conversation! I took her shopping over the footbridge to a bus stop and than
crossed again and headed south down through what I thought would be a quiet
road to the Thames but turned out to be a very busy industrial estate.
At
last I found some relative tranquility by cutting off the road and down to the
Thames and my first footpath in Essex. I was not impressed; no signs and built
over at both ends. At the Dagenham end
as I was cutting up towards the car factory I swear they were in the process
of building directly over the footpath.
After scrambling down through a building site I ended up in the Ford’s motor
complex and then on the A13 again.
I had a couple of miles along the A13 to really deepen my moral
– I could not take anymore so gave up at Rainham and caught the bus back to
Barking, the train to West Ham and the tube to Canning Town. At West Ham I thought of my grandfather and
wondered where he must have lived. I had just started tracing my family tree
so did not have any addresses as yet.
I
walked from Canning Town back to Silvertown and then drove back to Coventry. A
good days extra walking and in company time!
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