The Creekside Discovery Centre is a truly passionate charity dedicated to changing Londoners’ limited and most likely prejudiced perceptions of our urban rivers, in this case focussing on the River Ravensbourne and the tidal stretch where it empties into the Thames at Deptford Creek. They provide a range of activities based around Deptford, all designed to bring people into contact with nature and to raise ecological awareness.

We reached the Centre from Greenwich station in a few minutes, via the footpath beside the railway line. Upon arriving at the Centre we were met by the bearded font of bubbling enthusiasm that was our guide for the day, Nick. Watching my friend Mark from the Natural History Museum interact with Nick was a delight as they cheerfully goaded each other over the merits, or not, of gardening versus ‘translocating’ plants. Nick is tremendously proud of the brownfield habitat surrounding the centre with its tens of thousands of tiny rare saxifrage blooms peeping out into urban Deptford. He spends a fair bit of time spotting and saving (AKA translocating) unusual and threatened plants from the ongoing demolitions and supposed regenerations around this reach of London.

After our brief tour of the brownfield habitat we went back into the centre to don our rubber waders for our walk in the Creek. As you head inside there are racks literally overflowing with flotsam plucked from the river. On Mark’s last visit to the Centre he found a samurai sword in the water, heaven knows why that was in there but I don’t really want to ponder that for too long. There are also dozens of wallets strewn around the shelves, something I saw throughout the creek walk. I guess that a river provides the perfect place to discard a robbed wallet?

The River Ravensbourne rises from Caesar’s Well in Keston. It trickles slowly through Bromley and Beckenham to Catford, where it absorbs the smaller River Pool and forges north, ever swelling. Edging around Lewisham it ends its journey by emptying into the Thames at Deptford.

The Creekside Discovery Centre possesses the only ‘beach’ along the Creek. Meaning that there is a slope from above well above the waterline down to the riverbed. Obviously our visit was timed to take advantage of low tide so the beach was completely revealed. This gave Mark and Nick the chance to revel in the various plant nurseries supported by the frequently inundated soil.

The evident pride taken in their discoveries is infectious and I found myself keenly but ignorantly admiring their Haringey Knotweed, one of the first half dozen specimens ever recorded. The lethal water hemlock surrounding the edges is something I’ve seen all over town. It looks innocuous but it is one of the most toxic plants known to man.

Both botanists effused over the Marsh Sow-thistle they pointed out beside the rubble path. This species has suffered enormously over recent years of development and human encroachment, and Mark has played a part in restoring it to the wild near Crayford Marshes where it was previously deliberately destroyed. It turns out that brownfield sites are a lot more interesting than I ever imagined.

We stepped down into the Creek for the first time and used our wooden walking poles to turn ourselves into tripods. Nick took the lead and off we went upstream. Much of the walk focuses on the efforts of the Creekside Discovery Centre staff getting to know the ecology of Deptford Creek. Their mistakes are often as interesting as their successes. For example, who would have thought that removing shopping trolleys from a river could cause a fish population collapse? Really it’s blindingly obvious, but perhaps only in hindsight. A river like this has almost no foliage at the water’s edge, just the sheer walls built from steel, stone, or wood. Shopping trolleys are perfect fish houses because the mesh lets little fish in whilst barring hungry predators from getting in. Removing the trolleys left the fish open to the daily raids of big fish when the tide came in. Cue population and biodiversity crashes.

Next up comes Deptford Falls. Or rather the very small weir just around the second bend. We carefully picked our path around the next curve, not so much because of the slippery rocks or the drowning potential but because a flipping furious swan was bristling itself at our approach. We inched around it as Nick tried to gently encourage it to move away from our party. I’ve never seen a bird so obviously angry before. Yes, Canada Geese frequently nip people at the slightest provocation but they appear to have a dumb kind of foolish and greedy rage, not the calculated show of strength that the swan was obviously preparing for us. Had there only been one of us I would not have been surprised if it had gone nuclear. Once we were safely past him Mr. Swan visibly relaxed but continued to train its beady eye on us.

The Creek walk cannot probe much further south than here because the Ravensbourne is culverted and protected by a much more impressive weir than the one that Mr. Swan was protecting. Here Nick pointed out to us the various ways that conservation can be carried out to alter an urban river’s ecology. The sheer steel walls on the far side were barren, whereas the stone and timber walls were draped with foliage. The Centre actively campaigns to have river walls fixed with wooden frames so that each high tide deposits both soil and flora on top of each beam. Here we could see the Herb Robert Flower with its glorious purple flower shining brightly against the dark stone backdrop. “Where you find decay you find life” stated Nick earlier in the walk – obviously truthfully. As wood rots it acts as a flowerpot and you get these little glimpses of beauty in what can be a harsh human landscape. Micro-habitats like these allow the river to be colonised rather than completely debased by human interaction.

We had to double back past the swan again but this time it was not quite so concerned, thankfully. Two of our party had been prodding around in the riverbed and unearthed a large hunk of flint, when it came clear of the water we could see it teeming with life. Tiny shrimp wriggled all over the slimy surface but in the concave spaces we found various water snails sheltering. Mark took the flint and the snails off to the Natural History Museum with him.

Seconds later Nick was rummaging through the mud along the verge and called for us to gather around him. He had found leeches. Their mouth parts were too feeble to break human skin but they could still hang on to its surface and dangle from his raised hand. They extended themselves like living spaghetti, down and down, vainly searching for a more natural surface to cling to until they were about 4 inches long. Weird little things.

I spotted a passport and several more wallets around here, kept company by gently bobbing golf balls presumably lost by players in Beckenham Place Park – 6 miles upstream from here.

Back down by the beach we had a few minutes of using nets to see what we could haul out of the river. Resting them on the bed and then scraping your foot along the rocks would lead to dozens of shrimp filling the nets in seconds. We each filled the waiting plastic trays so that the water pulsed with darting shapes. I dragged an Asian clam out of the water, and then Nick located a Chinese Mitten Crab. These invasive species have all come into British eco-systems via the ballast water of shipping and now they are causing havoc. There is not much that can be done but to support our native wildlife to counter the threat.

We headed downstream from the beach for only a few minutes before we noticed that the tide was rapidly turning. As we plodded back to safety we could actually see the water level rising and areas of land we had just walked on being inundated. The importance of having a knowledgeable guide in these situations became self-evident.

As we packed up the nets and trays someone caught a Stickleback fish, and then the area’s abattoir past met the modern day as a wonderfully intact but totally black  (meaning really rather old) cow bone was dredged to the surface.

I had expected mud to play a lot more of a part in the day’s adventure but we had gotten off pretty lightly really. Only the odd splatter here and there. However, there was a group of Boy Scouts in the Creek at the same time as us but on a separate walk and one of them came past me a bit worse for wear.

“Why is it always me?” he mournfully asked, to nobody in particular. The scout leader decided to point out that it was because he never paid attention. The boy didn’t seem to hear that remark because he was too busy focussing on all the mud hanging off of his clothes and not still looking where he was going. Which made us laugh even more.

If you are interested in taking a guided walk in Deptford Creek then please contact the Creekside Discovery Centre. Remember that it is tide-dependent so you do need to book in advance. Today’s walk was the Low Tide Walk which is also suitable for children aged 8-16 (who I reckon would love this walk).

Rubber waders are provided to protect your clothes, feet, and legs from mud and sharp objects, but make sure you wear warm socks underneath as the two and a half hours in the water will eventually start to numb your toes. If you are anything like me though you won’t notice that – it’s just too interesting to care about your feet!

At the moment I seem doomed to wake up at the weekend even earlier than I do in the week. This Saturday, 20th April 2013, felt like the first true spring day even at 6:40am. I cursed my stupid over-active brain and tumbled out of bed. I had always planned to walk this morning but even a little lie-in would have been appreciated. Instead off I went by bus to New Eltham to take out the Shuttle Riverway and put to bed some old demons over the Cray Riverway/LOOP in Bexley.

Starting point – New Eltham railway station, Zone 4, services to Charing Cross and Cannon Street.

Finish point – Bexley train station, Zone 6, services to Charing Cross and Cannon Street.

Length – 8 miles (12.9 Kilometres).

As I say, the easiest railway station to start this route from is New Eltham. From there you would follow the Green Chain north to find the start of the Shuttle Riverway. As I was already on a bus from Beckenham I alighted at Merchland Road bus stop and headed straight up Sparrows Lane.

As soon as I passed the entrance to Charlton Athletic’s training ground I was almost overwhelmed by how springlike the morning was. Vapour trails in the cloudless blue dome of a sky were set glowing by the strong sunlight. The hedgerows leading to Avery Hill Park poured a constant cannonade of twittering upon me. Robins hopped from branch to branch, shadowing my progress. I was determined to take this walk very easy.

Avery Hill Park is somewhere I have crossed a few times now, mainly on the Green chain. It is something of a crossroads for South East London walking as plenty of strong itineraries head through here. “It’s quite a nice park” is how I had always thought of it until now. But that was because I had never been exposed to the fantastic Winter Garden. Like some beautiful palm and cacti house uprooted from Kew and dumped here under the University of Greenwich’s supervision this hothouse was not open at 8:30am but I pressed my eager eyes up to the glass to suck in views seeping from a long-dead century. Opulence indeed:

Happy with the first discovery of the day I stepped onward and straight into Jogging Land. Everywhere I looked around the little cafe there were people limbering up for some multi-km plod starting later in the morning. I was even asked, by an odd-one-out woman running as stereotypically ladylike as it is possible for a woman to run, whether I was competing. Nuh-uh. The idea of jogging has never appealed. Either sprint, or walk.

Outside Avery Hill Park you cross a road and enter a corridor of green between housing blocks. A naughty child ran up and down the path, ignoring his mum and his friend who were growing ever more impatient with the rascal. South you turn, passing into Parish Wood which has a massive playground including two of those awesome sound-amplifying concave disks – stand by one and talk quietly into it and your friend beside the other one 20 metres away will be able to hear you clearly. Magic.

A reed-fringed duck pond heralded the start of the day’s watercourses, a trickle leading from that directs you down a path until the water mingles into the much larger current on Berwick Crescent. This is the Shuttle River. It is much more ‘solid’ and ‘real’ than I had expected. Urban rivers often surprise me with their vitality, their refusal to go underground and into obscurity.

Holly Wood Oak Park, Willersley Park, and Marlborough Park follow in quick succession. As good a ‘green chain’ as anything actually on the Green Chain.

One thing I’ve noticed on my wanderings is the very high quality of the parks in the London Borough of Bexley. The playgrounds in particular are a wonder of the modern age. As I passed the one in Willersley Park I gazed with nostalgic longing at the multicoloured frames and playthings.

It was still really early in the morning so it was no surprise that every refreshment kiosk I passed was firmly shut up. A bit later on any sunny summer morning would make these an essential asset to the Shuttle Riverway so I hope they are still viable and open from time to time.

The Riverway carried me through a lovely patch of daffodils. Literally. Which was also a bit odd as they crowd the path so closely that you do have to be pretty careful not to kick their wibbly little heads off. Skirting a fence I started to wonder where I was. I hadn’t kept much track of my route so far, opting instead to trust in the blazes. It’s worth pointing out here that I read before walking this that the signage left a lot to be desired, but the truth right now is that it is almost perfect.

THWACK!

From nowhere the sound of someone teeing-off ricocheted around my mind. Sidcup Golf Club had arrived on my right. You scramble through the only slightly overgrown part of the route and find yourself on Dene Avenue, which today was teeming with lovely pink blossoms.

And then I witnessed something I may never witness again. The sheer arrogance of a Chelsea Tractor 4×4 driver attempting to bully a Nissan Micra, and failing, is a thing to behold. The outraged beeping of the 4×4 was hilarious as the Micra had nowhere to go. David slaughtered Goliath. She gesticulated wildly at the Micra as she gave in and pulled into the obvious and enormous space she had just deliberately overshot. Idiot.

The A221 looked like it would be busy and loud but it was not too bad after all. Upon seeing the river I realised I couldn’t see a blaze anywhere so I was uncertain for the first time that morning which way to go. I took the track on the south side of the water and headed east – it was the right choice.

This is probably the nicest part of the whole trail – Riverside Walk it’s called. The Shuttle winds through lovely grassy areas. Willows droop into the clear water and ducks splish into the current from their hidden resting places. Dogs patrol the verges trying to catch others out, but fail every time. Riverside Walk has another of those excellent playgrounds to make this somewhere pretty much perfect for a picnic.

Bexley Wood seemed to sparkle as the sun beat down. The slope to the right made the trees glimmer as they reached up to the light. Sadly it is quite a small patch of woodland, but you can’t have it all.

The Riverway takes you along some quiet roads, including the very pretty Riverdale Road, but then the A2 looms audibly before you see it. As the sound of water gurgling over rocks is trumped by the racket of engines and tyres your spirits will droop a bit. It’s inevitable. Cross the A2 by the footbridge and leave that roar behind as soon as possible.

A house with a canon on its lawn was unexpected.

The Warren is a strange bump at the top of the day’s only real climb. Brief though it is the views from up here stretch far beyond the London boundary.

Take care crossing the A220 and dodge the dog mess as you take in even more impressive views down to and over Hall Place. It’s a really beautiful building, apparently part-Tudor, part-Jacobean. Sit on the bench at the top of the slope and enjoy the avenue of trees framing it. The Shuttle Riverway ends at the bottom of this slope so take your time.

I, however, had demons to exorcise. About 9 months ago I hurt myself badly simply walking the Thames Path and LOOP from Woolwich to Bexley, my memories of the walk between Hall Place and Bexley are mainly flecked with despair and agony. I’ve learned my lesson now. I’m stronger, fitter, and more clued-up, so I took the LOOP/Cray Riverway from Hall Place round to Bexley train station.

Honestly, it’s not much cop. You have to walk beside the A2 for a bit more, and then you take a fairly dull path abundantly edged by the incredibly toxic hogweed. Nevertheless is was worth taking on for a second time because there aren’t many links from Hall Place itself. Although I did have to run through Bexley village so that I caught my train home.

The Shuttle Riverway has a lot to offer. From the glamour of the Winter Garden at Avery Hill Park, to the tranquillity of the Shuttle River at the Riverside Walk, to the gorgeous finale of Hall Place. I expected suburbia but this walk really links green patches together in an intelligent and interesting way. Perhaps the weather played a part in making it thoroughly enjoyable, but you get the feeling that even a typically British overcast afternoon would find it difficult to ruin things. It’s not part of one of the ‘strategic’ routes around London but you shouldn’t let that dissuade you from taking it on.

When the Jubilee Greenway was conceived the area around South Kensington was a snarling mess of obstructed pavements and confused traffic. Today it has been thoroughly pedestrianised and is a joy to walk through. Which is one good reason why I chose to start this walk here instead of Buckingham Palace, the suggested start of section 1. Apologies in advance for the crappy photography – mobile phone only in this post.

Starting point: South Kensington tube station, Zone 1 with District, Circle, and Piccadilly Line services.

Finishing point: Camden Town tube station, Zone 2, with Northern Line services.

Length: 5.5 miles (8.8 kilometres).

After leaving South Kensington via the north exit of its covered arcade turn right along Thurloe Street and then left onto Exhibition Road, which streaks off into the far distance. Soak up the ambience generated by the European-style street dining. I can personally recommend Comptoir Libanaise for a delicious snack here, and check out this pub crawl around Knightsbridge and Belgravia if you wanted something different to do around here.

Following Exhibition Road north takes you across the busy Cromwell Road at the pedestrian crossing. On your left is the astounding façade of the Natural History Museum, which is only narrowly less-impressive than that of the Victoria and Albert Museum on the right. If you’re lucky you’ll experience a man busking with a tuba here, notice the inevitable crowd around him and pay close attention because each note is accompanied with a puff of flame from the horn.

At the very top of Exhibition Road you cross over into Hyde Park but then immediately left into Kensington Gardens. There is a map board here in case you don’t know where you’re going (guiltily raises hand).

It’s a bit of a shame but the Albert Memorial is undergoing renovation at the moment so you can’t quite see it in its full glory. I expect whatever they are doing will be finished by the summer though. Directly opposite that is the glorious Royal Albert Hall so you’re not wasting any time here without something to look at.

The path leads west through the gardens along a section fringed with pretty little flowers and a look north could easily lead you to believe that you are in a suburban park rather than smack bang in the middle of one of the world’s greatest metropolises…

There are public toilets at the end of this path, when you reach them you turn north onto a wide road that bisects the gardens. Skaters and cyclists lazily weave their way around the area, stopping only to admire the pond or Kensington Palace which is newly opened to the public. Queen Victoria watches over your progress as you pass.

The top of this path is Black Lion Gate which empties you from the park onto frenetic Bayswater Road. The pavement was thronging with tourists and I recognised how different these city centre walks are from my usual orbital staples. It’s almost nerve-wracking having to dodge between aimless spinning foreigners but luckily it doesn’t last long. You turn left when you pass the crumbly Thistle hotel, onto posh residential Porchester Terrace.

The Jubilee Greenway blazes take the form of pavement slabs. They are well thought out and are turned to indicate the direction you should be heading. Just keep going the way the last one told you to and you can be sure that another one will tell you when to veer off when the time is right. For this section it did just that and only indicated when to turn when I reached a pedestrian crossing on Praed Street. A hop, skip, jump around the bustling Paddington crowds and I was off down a side street.

The huge doors on the brick building to the right remind me of the fire station from Ghostbusters, and more specifically the toy version of it that my childhood best friend had. The one where you got to pour purple goo through the ceiling lattice so everyone inside was thoroughly ecto-plasm’d…

Crossrail developments are visible all over London. The scale of this project is truly enormous but there are few places where it is more apparent than Paddington. As you head down these streets you will see hoardings and small diversions as essential works are carried out, so keep aware of any potential alterations to the route. Just as I passed the Ghostbusters building there was a building site which almost hid the blaze from me. For your information you need to turn onto the brick lane just before the entrance to the Paterson Centre at Imperial College Hospital.

Moments later you reach the Regent’s Canal. The water might be grubby and thick in places with litter but it still holds an air of romanticism. It just feels nice along here. And it only gets better.

Passing the Standing Man sculpture by Sean Henry you come to Little Venice. This weird triangular section of narrowboat berths is really pretty indeed. The aesthetic value of the area is enhanced even more with the odd palm tree and gaggles of geese. You walk all the way around this triangle before following the canal towards the Maida Tunnel.

The towpath here is completely full of houseboats and their land-side gardens. Creepers lead from the long-stationary boats to the railings beside the pavement on Blomfield Road. The pavement itself almost impassable at times with huge trees growing right in the middle of the path.

It was just before Maida Tunnel that I started keeping pace with a narrowboat by accident. It popped into the darkness and I crossed over the crown of the hill. When I found the canal again it was slightly ahead of me in the deep cutting.

I hopped down the steel stairs to the towpath and a weird bloke stood with a lovely little whippet dog. As I passed I could have sworn he whispered ‘Eat him’ to the dog but she just regarded me with sad curiosity, rather than snarling hunger. I didn’t look at the man again and upped my pace as there was nobody else near enough to help me if I had heard correctly…

The rain pattered down as I overtook that narrowboat  and I in turn was buzzed by cyclists racing along their own private rush hours. The clouds cleared just in time to allow the villas along the back end of Regent’s Park to be bathed in the deep yellow light of the setting sun. They are such strange abodes, lost in their own little display of pompous elegance.

The canal curved lazily towards London Zoo and I took a few seconds to admire the brilliant aviary which slightly overhangs the towpath  All manner of weird and very wonderful birds occupied all the perches and they seemed to be getting on remarkably well together.

Tip: If you wanted to see some pretty astonishing views of London then head north, away from the canal just after the aviary and you will be able to climb Primrose Hill to get some. It’s only ten minutes’ hard climb but well worth the detour.

A little further on there is a slight off-shoot where a Chinese-styled houseboat-cum-restaurant sits at rest. It looks like something straight out of a 60s James Bond film.

Keep on the towpath under the road bridge and you are on the final stage leading into Camden Lock. The surroundings become more in keeping with an industrial past than the flamboyant residences encountered earlier in the walk. The colour palate swings from greens, yellows, and blues, to a very obvious brown, grey, and black. The city may feel like it has returned but to the canal but there is a lot of interest with various brick warehouses and steeply arched bridges to explore.

The modern character of Camden cannot be missed, and you hear it long before you see it. Buskers and impromptu sing-alongs dot the path and merge into a good-natured cacophony under the echoing bridges. Everything it light-hearted and smiley. Teenagers stand around aged Rastafarians, gazing in awe and awkwardly dancing to their songs. Further along a rap performance piece is in full flow with some kind of dramatic element involved in the sung story.

It’s always interesting here.

Just before I reached the famous bridge at Camden Lock I turned into the market space to the north. As I wandered through several food sellers were closing up for the day and dismantling their stalls. On Camden Lock Place the clothing stalls were still open, just, with the great big blue rail bridge as their backdrop.

The walk south along Camden High Street is busy every day, all day. Apart from when it rains. The golden sun here now had drawn multitudes out so it slowed me down greatly. All the better to see the famous frontages of the buildings on both sides of the street. As I fought through the massive crowd at the junction with Kentish Town Road I ended my walk at Camden Town tube station.

This is a brilliant walk. It is short enough be completed in just over two hours and it takes you through a great range of London’s historical, cultural, and spiritual landmarks. There is a hell of a lot to see and you could easily spend many hours resting along the way to take in the full ambience on offer. I’m very pleased to say that this has just shot into my list of my favourite walks in London. Pick a nice clear day and try it for yourself.

I might have been slow but judicial application of Ibuprofen and well-placed rest stops meant we were able to forge on to the finish line and do ourselves proud. This section of the Vanguard Way is a spectacular way to finish a 4 day walk and we were blessed with the weather changing for the better at the last moment.

Starting point: Chiddingly, reachable Monday to Saturday by 54 bus from Eastbourne or East Grinstead. Or by 143 bus Monday to Friday from Lewes or Eastbourne. You have to get off at Golden Cross and walk a further 3/4 mile to Chiddingly.

Finishing point: Newhaven Town railway station. Usually reachable by train or replacement bus services to Lewes.

Length: 19.4 miles (31.3km).

As expected we struggled to get going at the slightly earlier hour we chose to arise. Ankles creaking through Chiddingly because of the previous day’s exertions we took a few minutes to admire this pretty village. Slightly outdated signs reading ‘Vote NO to Land Raise’ highlight how at-risk the countryside is in parts of south-east England. Here East Sussex County Council tried to solve the urban waste problem by allowing green belt land to be used for landfill. Not on our watch screamed the entire rural lobbying base and thumped that motion head-first into the fertile and probably newly muck-spread soil. Where the waste will actually go I have no idea…

The Vanguard Way takes you through the Chiddingly churchyard and across a weirdly proportioned cricket pitch. We beat a few stiles and immediately noticed the weird trail of corn husks that we were to follow for the rest of the day. As it was winter we had no way of knowing whether the husks were the result of strong local corn harvests or some voracious corn gobble monster striding through the East Sussex countryside.

The outskirts of Golden Cross were memorable only for the A22 and the disgusting stinky alley you traverse on the other side of it.

We passed some small ponds and Martyn revealed his extensive knowledge of emergency cooking ingredient sourcing by pointing out that bulrushes can be used as an alternative for normal flour. Which reminded me that I really need to learn a lot more about what I’m seeing along these routes.

The path continues past an amazing manor house and then turns right and straight for a few kilometres. Two horses, four motorbikers, and two cars were the only people to pass us for a long time. It’s so under-used that the local dogs would charge up and down the fences beside the road, yelling angrily at us for daring to approach their territory.

A short while later we were crossing a field near Arlington Reservoir and became a bit unclear about where exactly the path lay. As we started walking across the front of a large house, following a footpath, the elderly and exceedingly posh owner signalled from inside the conservatory that we were on the wrong path. He came out and had a friendly conversation with us. He’s right that people do feel a bit embarrassed passing so close to a house, and his alternative route avoiding the garden is a better route to be sure, but he needs to make his blazes a little more clear really. Not that he was angry at us, he stated that he fully respected the footpath that does run past his home.

We had to wait at the level crossing beside Berwick railway station for about ten minutes before we reached a point where we could view the chalk Longman on the South Downs. Every step felt like we were closing rapidly on the end. We really were making excellent progress.

A woman approached us and asked if we were the South Bank Ramblers, we were not, and then we spotted a few other people milling around for a group stroll. This was really the first indication of the Vanguard Way being a popular stroll in these parts.

Just past here we edged around a field rather than tackle the enormous furrows across it. My ankles certainly didn’t need that additional grief. Two other walkers had elected to cross using the actual route, even though it had been decimated by plough, and I shouted over to them ‘Good luck!’. The man’s reply that he liked a challenge felt funny considering the past few days of our own experiences. Today was a lot easier on us though as we’d avoided rain overnight.

I knew there was a pub in Berwick village, which is a mile or two from the railway station of the same name, so we aimed for it. Unfortunately it was only 11:30am and a Sunday so it didn’t open for another half hour. The Cricketers Arms looks like an amazing sun trap, when it’s open. One for the future sadly.

Onwards! Berwick is obviously well-walked as there are blazes all over the place. We stepped out of the village and admired the rolling green fields leading up to Alfriston. Groups of walkers dotted the undulating path and most of them shot us weird looks as we passed by. We didn’t look that grubby really. Surely. Though maybe they could smell us?

We stopped in at the Market Inn and supped on a pint of local Longman ale to give us the boost needed for the next few hours. I could only manage to tread slowly out of Alfriston.

Yet more tight kissing gates drew us along the start of the Cuckmere Meanders. Martyn was sincerely underwhelmed at this point because he thought this was it. That there was nothing more to them.

As we left the river at Litlington we found a weird ‘Toads On Road’ sign before climbind up onto the South Downs at last.

The beautiful White Horse across the valley meant that we had scenes of interest whichever way we looked. To our left a tractor was ploughing a huge field whilst being bombarded by gulls, ahead was the full bulk of the South Downs, behind us lay Alfriston – all beautiful in their own ways. Banana bread Soreen loaf and pumpkin seeds refuelled us as I realised my disappointment at having to drop steeply, and re-climb the South Downs near Exceat.

And then we had to do it again.

But this time we were in for a treat. The final climb on this side of the Cuckmere River began in cloudy conditions but when we emerged onto the hillside overlooking the English Channel we were bathed in strong sunlight. It was pretty much perfect. THIS is why we walk these routes. THIS is the reward you deserve for challenging yourself so much.

The Meanders and the Channel glistened as Martyn fished a hip flask out of his bag. A good single malt is needed to celebrate a view like this.

We rested for a good half hour before dragging ourselves away from this view. Down, across Exceat Bridge, and then south we went.

At long last the Seven Sisters flashed their chalky white faces at us. Dominant and brilliant they arc away from you with the Channel lying dark and in stark contrast in this light, the Beachy Head lighthouse clearly visible in the clear air.

Every few metres we had no choice but to stop and look back the way we’d come, and east towards hidden Eastbourne. There were still remarkably few people up here. Why is it so neglected?

These cliffs provide just enough height for you to be able to discern the dark line on the horizon that is France. It was here that the scale of the walk hit me. Countless people have walked further before, and endless numbers will do so in future but this felt like a big thing for me to have done. Especially after the pains of 2012. No more, my knee was still in fine condition. I was astounded.

My ankles were pretty awful by now but really I didn’t care any more. I just had to make it the final six miles. The cliffs eventually dropped away sharply to open up the wide and sparkling views over Seaford. Newhaven was barely visible but we knew it was there. We could even make out Brighton in the furthest distance.

The slowest descent in history began now. About 15 hours later I made it to the bottom, directly onto the Seaford waterfront.

The pastel beach huts lay dormant in this early season but a welcome tea shack gave me my first proper cuppa in 70-odd miles. Then came the Napoleonic era fortification-cum-museum. Otherwise Seaford is really in need of a bit of love. The waterfront would benefit from some nice quiet restaurants or wine bars. A posh restaurant here or there with a good terrace.

I can understand that they wouldn’t want a noisy loutish beach but they desperately need a bit of life here.

THERE ISN’T EVEN A FISH AND CHIP SHOP.

And that, my friends, is a disgrace.

As the sun sunk into the Channel the sky burned orange and the fishing boats headed home. We left Seaford along paths through the ruins of old tidemills, and picked up a woman companion who was a bit concerned to be out here and lost as the sun disappeared.

As the last mile of the Vanguard Way disappeared we joined the railway line into Newhaven Harbour. We were supposed to finish here but we still hadn’t seen a chippy. It was suspiciously quiet but we didn’t twig that until we reached Newhaven Town, still minus a chippy. And then we discovered that there were no trains running.

“Sigh.”

I had checked but clearly things had changed. We were gently reprimanded by the rail replacement bus driver as he picked us up from the ‘wrong stop’ and proceeded to whizz along black roads away from the Vanguard Way. Martyn revealed a big of sweet nuts he had been saving for four days as a final treat.

We’d done it. 73ish miles in total due to the accumulation of slight mistakes and deliberate diversions. It had been damn hard work but it really was worth every ache. We were smelly and a bit dead when we got to Lewes and realised we’d missed the connection train home, but yet another pint and the pub’s final portion of bitterballen proved to be a nice way to finish the trip.

There you have it. A brilliant route which is pretty well marked throughout and full of surprises. You pass through Surrey, Kent, and East Sussex as you connect the city to the sea. You discover areas where you are pretty much entirely alone, and then you find some of the nicest people. You can reach the start by Oyster Card and you can be back in Croydon just two hours after you finish, four days later.

It’s stretching the definition of a ‘Walk Around London’ but I’m more than happy to make that leap. Whether you tackle it in one go or several please make sure you do.

I went to sleep the previous day harbouring fears about my knee’s ability to keep going for another two days. By morning these fears were allayed and I felt pretty good really. A few aches but nothing serious. By the end of the day I would have experienced a wide range of pains all over and experienced a wholly different set of threats to the walk, but overriding any of that was the brilliance of the day in general.

Starting point: Ashdown Forest, reachable Monday to Saturday by 291 bus from Crawley, East Grinstead, or Tunbridge Wells.

Finishing point: Chiddingly, reachable Monday to Saturday by 54 bus from Eastbourne or East Grinstead. Or by 143 bus Monday to Friday from Lewes or Eastbourne. You have to get off at Golden Cross and walk a further 3/4 mile to Chiddingly.

Length: 18.6 miles (30km).

It had been a very cold night. I was aware of this not because I was cold, far from it, but when I unzipped my tent and fired up my stove I put a Look What We Found bolognese on the heat and listened with horror as the roar stuttered and failed. It was so cold that my gas wasn’t working! After five minutes with the cannister in my sleeping bag with me I tried again and rejoiced as I added my Amoy Straight to Wok noodles to the steaming hot bolognese. Oriental-style spag-bol breakfast was served.

After a short stretch of road walking down through Newbridge we looked up the huge slope to the east and used our peak energy levels to attack it full on. Ashdown Forest is just as patchy here as we found it to be the night before, the late-winter scrub a pretty yellow and the trees bare. Sweat began to drip down my face as we galloped uphill. I chewed on the slope and enjoyed the knowledge that by the end of the day we would be within touching distance of the finale.

We skirted an outcrop of coniferous forest before reaching the B2026. Already the views in every direction were tremendous and well worth the previous two day’s effort. Ashdown Forest might be sparse at this point but it is a true gem of southern England. Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty indeed.

We turned our gaze along the hazy line of the South Downs and I felt my heart skip as I spotted the dip for the Cuckmere Meanders for the first time. Our eventual goal. It looked a LONG way away still.

But then it was. We were still over 30 miles away with unknown terrain between us and the finish line. 30 miles doesn’t sound like a long way at all but if it was anything like day 2 it would be a hard-won distance.

Martyn’s bottomless bag of pound shop cranberries served up several delicious mouthfuls as we progressed along the roof of the region. I began to tire of my own bottomless bag of pumpkin seeds. It just didn’t seem to go down. Ever. I write this two weeks later and I still have some left.

The terrain here feels completely unlike southern England. We followed the bridleway over successive humps and nodded salutations to numerous weekend walkers. It was verging on busy at times. I still managed to smile and greet a couple of horseback trail riders as they took their churners for some exercise. I think horses are great, but I can’t love them. They are beautiful, gentle, powerful, useful, etc. but I don’t think I’ll ever be completely pro-horse because of what they do to the paths I love to follow. Luckily up here the trail is so wide that it’s tough for horses to damage it beyond human use.

Kingstanding copse came and went with some more stunning views. Gorse flecked the pale yellow landscape with dark green bulk and vivid yellow buds. Grasses spread scraps of reds through the scene and I remembered why I’ve produced a few oil paintings using just these same stripes and colours. People see them and think they are imagined landscapes, but they are only so far as the abstract shapes I use. The colours are genuinely out there, lurking just beyond the M25.

Down and up again we stepped. We joked with two women about the expanses of water they seemed terrified to cross. My injury Wheel of Fortune span again and I detected left Achilles pains. Then shortly after I found right Achilles pains too. Stupid body.

Poundgate brought a busy A-road to cross, and then we found sodden woodland. Martyn revelled in our discovery of another decrepit pillbox, and then nearly walked head first into a tall fence in the woods. I finally managed to get a picture of some deer on the southern edge of Newnham Park Wood. Until this point the gits had always been too skittish for my cold-beleagured trigger finger.

We gobbled chocolate as we read a sign indicating that the Vanguard Way was being diverted between October 2012 and April 2013 due to land slippage and unsafe footbridges. No matter, we took the diversion in an arc approaching High Hurstwood from the west. One that takes in some iron ore pits from several centuries ago.

Suddenly I realised how much pain I was in. My ankles were both screaming at me.

I descended into High Hurstwood at about 1 mph and collapsed into the grass next to Holy Trinity Church so that I could dig out some Ibuprofen. Usually I refuse to touch any medication unless I’m in serious difficulties so that’s a pointer towards how I was feeling now. I worried a lot about the rest of the day but happily Martyn found a ball in the hedge with a great big smiley face on it. A sign to cheer the hell up.

The pills were much needed. This stretch consists of a lot of steep climbs and mucky drops. We passed under the railway arch heading into Buxted, its bricks coated with a vivid orange moss or mould. The going was slow and I felt bad for holding us back so much. I crawled up each bump and tried not to moan too much. But I probably definitely did.

I decided to call the first half of the day to a halt in an alley in Pound Green. We flopped into grass next to a small field full of sheep. As we unpacked bits and bobs for our lunch, including beef jerky, the flock started to creep up on us. One brave leader would inch ahead, wait for the rest to catch up, and inch ever closer. They did finally realise that they weren’t going to get any Fruit Gums, or any of Martyn’s disgusting looking instant mash, and retreated to a watchful distance.

After lunch I felt a lot better. We were cold now but the half hour rest had helped me out no end. It was still hard work on the climb into Blackboys.

I don’t remember a lot about this part of the day. A scrap yard, some kids helping us stay on the right track, a nice house with its own boating pond and system of locks, and an allotment with a rat infestation. We sat on picnic tables next to Blackboys Village Hall and ate part of a Tootsie Roll, which must be one of the sweetest things known to man. Too sweet.

We used Blackboys as a refuelling station too. The Blackboys Inn topped up our water bottles as we downed a swift pint, before the racing for the prize – Chiddingly, about another 5.5 miles away.

Knowing that a lot of the intervening distance was going to be quiet road walking along fairly level terrain relieved my pains for quite a while because up til now it was relentless stiles that were driving me a bit mad. Usually I quite like stiles but now they were a chore because quite a few are in different stages of dilapidation. Or are as unstable as a see-saw. The action of stepping down from a broken stile hurts. A lot.

Then there were kissing gates that you literally couldn’t get through if you were wearing a pack. They led to amusing amounts of climbing and push-ups to lever the gate under the pack instead.

After the length of road walking we were seeing signs for Chiddingly so that helped even more. We turned off of the asphalt and soon entered a field of llamas. No, wrong, alpacas. I only found out afterwards that you can tell them apart by the shape of their ears. Alpacas have more pointed, smallish ears whereas llamas have very silly banana-shaped ears. A simple mnemonic I invented for this distinction – bananallama. Easy.

As we discussed the relative difficulties that farmers must face when they have footpaths legally crossing their fields we edged ever closer to Chiddingly. Martyn greeted a friendly Alsatian in a paddock to our right and then when we started to cross the bottom of another field the farmer shouted at us from behind a fence, one enormous dog attached to each hand.

In a joky friendly way. The path here is actually a stream. The farmer chided us on our timidity when we tried to step carefully through the water and then told us we needed better boots. Not strictly true really is it, he admitted that a spring rises at that point so ‘after the wettest winter in history’ it was going to be flooded. We exchanged pleasantries with the farmer and he advised us to head for the village pub for the live music. But not before informing us that we were the first walkers he’d ever heard of doing the whole Vanguard Way in one go. That made us feel pretty good even if it was just an oversight on his part!

We took a bit of a wrong turn as soon as we left his patch, following the road around and into Chiddingly rather than through a boggy field edged with barbed wire fences.

We stepped into the village pub and I asked the manager if he knew where we could camp. He pointed us in the right direction, I’m not going to tell you where as the place we did camp was very generous towards us and I don’t want to saddle them with new expectant blagging arrivals in future.

Chiddingly is a lovely village. Everyone we met was kind, helpful and generous. As we pitched our tents we were tired but pleased to have ended our day here. The pub was full of delicious beers and the cheapest food in the largest quantities you could ask for. I can’t speak highly enough of the place.

We crawled to bed long before the live music started, hobbling badly but well-fed and quite happy. We’d beaten 3/4 of the Vanguard Way already, I was certain that day 4 would see us winning the war.

We didn’t set off as early as we might have liked. My shoulder muscles in particular had made sleeping quite painful at times so waking was a bit of a struggle. Also, I probably shouldn’t have had 4 pints to end the first day’s walk. Still, once I’d put a hat on, zipped up my jacket, and eaten breakfast, I was raring to go.

We had a long day ahead of us but I never expected it to be as hard as it turned out to be.

Starting Point: Limpsfield Chart, reachable by 594 bus from Westerham.

Finishing Point: Ashdown Forest. Specifically the Hatch Inn near Newbridge which is reachable by 291 bus from Crawley, East Grinstead or Tunbridge Wells. Monday to Saturday services only.

Length: 19 miles (30.6km).

It had been drizzling in the night and a slight mist hung over everything when we started our walk. The downward road from Limpsfield Chart took us past some pretty manors, across Kent Brook which marked our crossing over from Surrey to Kent, and beyond oast houses which leave nobody in any doubt as to which county you are treading through.

Now that I had Ordnance Survey maps to refer to I was taking more care to plot out where turnings should occur. That said I continued to make several navigational errors due to being slightly over-ambitious in my plotting. Still, I was learning fast and I’m not certain our first error was really my fault. A ‘VGW’ blaze took us slightly west and then I didn’t see another blaze for about 10 minutes. By that point we had been following a footpath sign to the wrong side of strip of woodland. Once I realised my error it wasn’t hard to fix but it was a bit annoying having to cross what looked a lot like private land…

Even the slight drizzle overnight had turned the previous day’s hardening mud into swathes of almost unpassable slurry. This is why there are few photos on this post. Martyn’s trainers held up reasonably well and I made sure my gaiters were fixed in place for the day. The constant sucking mud took a toll on my legs and slowed us dramatically.

We should have paused on the edge of Troy Town, after a particularly bad stretch of goo. Instead we just chatted and continued. Again I only noticed after about a kilometre that we were going the wrong way towards Edenbridge. A stupid lapse.

Internally I was very hard on myself for this wrong turn and from then on tried much harder to keep us on track. A bench break at Marlpit Hill rail bridge helped me perk up even though a typical white van dick yelled something rude at us as he sped past. Hey, I’m ginger, I’m used to people shouting crap at me from the safety of their vehicles.

Luckily for us the next few miles mainly consisted of quiet road walking so we could reclaim some of the lost pace from the day so far. With the drizzle long gone and the mist risen everything was looking a bit better.

Starborough Castle is just to the east of the Vanguard Way but pretty much entirely concealed behind fences and hedges so I’m not too sure why it bothers to detour around it at all.

Just as we began to consider stopping for lunch the path turned more evil than anywhere so far. As rabbits and idiotic partridges fled from our progress we found the mud (‘fun’) getting deeper all the time. By the time we reached Vicar’s Kink we were battling hard against drowning. Martyn went off-piste to save his socks and I skirted the verges with my walking poles bracing me against inevitable slips.

After conquering Vicar’s Kink I started up a slope only to suddenly feel like I was wrong. I turned around and proceeded in the wrong direction for a few hundred metres before we realised and turned back. More obviously than anywhere so far it was fatigue causing navigation issues.

A steep zig-zag path took us to the crest of a hill where a reservoir/fort was marked on the map. Sadly the fort is long gone and fenced off so we collapsed into a patch of leaves to eat our lunch. Chorizo, Pepperami, pita bread, chocolate, Babybels, Fruit Gums, a delicious mish-mash of things to gobble down voraciously.

The wind was whipping across the hill and chilling us at a furious pace so we both had to wrap up for the descent.

As we approached Hammerwood I missed a sudden left turn whilst admiring the tiniest glimpse of the sun in days so we had to backtrack again. But this was the last time on the whole trip. I’d learnt my lesson now.

Wet Wood was not as bad as its name suggested but I doffed an extremely reverent imaginary cap to a walker I’d referred to when planning this trip. His FIRST DAY took him all the way from Croydon to Hammerwood campsite just east of here. A feat I imagine can only have been accomplished in summer with more daylight hours and firmer ground than we got. Well done that man!

Here to Ashwood passed in a blur as we got a few kilometres of road walking under our belts. The biggest challenge of the day was still to come though as we began the descent into Forest Row.

Oh my word that was hard work. The ‘path’ turns from thick sticky mud into a scale model of the Grand Canyon where a stream has washed most of it away and left slurry everywhere else. My ankles and knees took a bit of a beating with strange brace positions and unexpected slips for a mile or two. By the time we reached the tarmac beside the water treatment plant at Forest Row I was pretty much done in.

For one terrifying second I thought I’d blown my knee again when I felt two harsh twinges in quick succession.

That would have ended my trip right there. I know what would happen when it starts to shoot pain quickly – within two miles I’m on the verge of tears.

This time I got away with it. I sat on the bench outside Forest Row Co-op and downed a whole bottle of water. Then we began a very, very, very slow walk up to Ashdown Forest. As we moved along Hartfield Road a really weird woman and her bug-eyed dog acted suspiciously when they saw Martyn. She looked just like her dog and seemed to believe she could make herself invisible if she stood really close to a hedge and gazed into it. Oddball.

Blazes were non-existent but we knew we just had to climb the hill to find the Forest. A nicely carved sign welcomed us back onto the Vanguard Way and indicated an overgrown path to our left. It follows the outside edge of the Royal Ashdown golf course for a few kilometres before gliding back into the patchy undergrowth of one of the only real areas of forest we saw in Ashdown Forest. One final massive slope was all we needed to conquer to end our day but at the top I was exhausted.

By the time we walked into the Hatch Inn pub we were both red-eyed and walking a bit like the Tin Man. We sat in silence, staring blankly around us for a good half an hour as our oil, sorry I mean pints of Harvey’s ale and Talisker whiskeys, slowly reinvigorated us. This is a superb pub, one of the best I’ve found. Established in the the 1430s it is rammed full of character and also serves wonderful food. My enormous stuffed and wrapped chicken breast followed a delicious platter of ‘artisan’ bread with olive oil and balsamic vinegar, while Martyn picked a mound of mussels and chips back to nothingness. Middle class food for some grubby muddy walkers.

This stretch was really hard work. I’ve definitely never felt so tired after any walk before. Still, we were not too far from the halfway point and we were very pleased with ourselves. That said I did end the day with the serious concern that the twinges might go full-blown in the night. It has happened before and as I settled down I put the odds at maybe 30/70 that I would suffer a knee explosion that would end the trip.

I needn’t have worried about that, but the next day had other challenges to overcome.

Today was the culmination of at least three years of wanting to walk the Vanguard Way. Finally I began the 66-mile walk from Croydon to the coast.

My friend Martyn eagerly agreed to walk the route with me and we met in mid-morning at East Croydon trail station. I sized up his pack, evidently smaller than mine but far more ramshackle and resembling a shanty town with various cables, ‘silicon bands’, and fabric doing and supporting whatever they were supposed to be doing. That’s his way though, Mr. Improvise.

Just like that we crossed the tram lines and I was finally off on the Vanguard Way.

Starting Point: East Croydon train station, reachable from Victoria, London Bridge, Brighton, Lewes, Gatwick Airport, New York, Moscow, etc.

Finishing Point: Limpsfield Chart, reachable the 594 bus to Westerham – Monday to Saturday services only, and non-TfL/Oyster.

Length: 16.3 miles (26.2km)

Footpaths and quiet residential roads zig-zag through the outskirts of Croydon, flashing you glimpses of her towers from time to time. It didn’t take long for us to get lost though. Within 15 minutes we were standing in Lloyd Park scratching our heads and abusing our mobile phones’ precious battery life to consult GPS maps. The trail’s blazes took us to the edge of the park, pointed us towards the north-east, and then promptly abandoned us.

I had naively determined that we wouldn’t have any trouble reaching the parts of the London Outer Orbital Path which coincide with the Vanguard Way and which I have walked before. This meant that I had no map or reference for where we were going on this part of the trip. We mooched around some ambiguous and completely unrelated signs and marked posts for a few minutes before taking a compass reading and heading roughly south-east, towards the hills coated by what I assumed to be Coombe Woods.

After crossing the Tramlink lines again for the final time we both tried one of Martyn’s pound shop snacks – Fruit Bowl ‘School Bars’. They did taste of raspberry but they look like a cross between reclaimed meat and dog treats. The texture is off-putting and weirdly chalky too, it feels like it’s been squeezed into a rod with the slush left in a smoothie machine. But, one of your five-a-day so – WOO!

Although the Lloyd Park jaunt was wrong we did find ourselves back on the Vanguard Way a few seconds later. Martyn remarked on how rural it felt, so soon after leaving a major conurbation. And he’s right, Croydon frequently doubles for places like Gotham City in Hollywood blockbusters (Delta Point, the BT building was used as Gotham General in Dark Knight Rises). It does get very green, very quickly.

We found the LOOP and were able to chat away without fear of getting lost around Selsdon. I had predicted that the recent spell of relative dry weather would mean a fairly mud-free walk. As a ‘wise man’ once wrote “Assumption is the brother of all **** ups” (Guy Ritchie) and I hadn’t factored in the pure evil that is horse hooves on bridleways.  Mud carnage ensued. Or, ‘fun’, as Martyn dubbed all mud from now on. He gained a stick to make him feel more like a rambler and although he kept saying ‘You shall not pass’ I wasn’t impressed by his gravitas so I dubbed him Grand Alf instead.

As soon as we reached Farleigh we got lost again. Neither of us saw a blaze and for some reason we turned east onto Farleigh Court Road. As soon as we realised our mistake we spent half an hour plumbing odd little footpaths through the woods, following a vague sou’-sou’-westerly direction. Martyn snagged himself on barbed wire whilst avoiding the ‘fun’ below us. I should point out that he wore trainers for the whole four days so although he had much lighter feet he also had to take much more care in the mud. Plus he got some blisters and is able to praise Compeed blister plasters very highly.

The wiggly route did turn out to be pretty accurate and we were soon sitting in Chelsham’s Coach House pub for a refreshing lunchtime beverage.

On we went, following blazes which seemed to take us the wrong way again. I’m not sure what happened but there we were, staring at a signpost with five fingers all pointing in different directions. None of which were marked ‘VGW’ as they usually are. So I guessed, and guessed right. Back on track once more!

All this confusion was costing us time in pondering but it wasn’t adding much to our distances.

We crossed Limpsfield Road and entered Barnard Road as indicated. But then we never found the correct path, probably because we were debating over the best types of sweets. We reached a gate with a sign and barbed wire so we turned around and took a path off of Barnard Road which took us into woods and then provided our first ‘big’ view of the walk, looking down over Woldingham.

Literally the only potential downside to walking with a travel companion is that you sometimes silently delegate blaze-spotting duties, which means that nobody is paying enough attention. I was the person who planned the trip so I soon learned I should have been on top of this at all times.

Grand Alf’s stick suddenly snapped in half but I spotted some likely candidates for a new one, and this lasted for the rest of the Vanguard Way. We descended and saw our first deer fleeing into the hills. We realised we were off-piste when we followed Slines Oak Road along the edge of Woldingham and had to dodge some speedy traffic. Just as we were about to refer to GPS once more we found a VGW blaze and crossed into a field. The path appeared to follow a tractor track up a super-steep hill and along the edge of a field but ten minutes later we came across a No Trespassing sign and crossed west into the woods to get out of this field.

That involved scaling a barbed wire fence. Which is never fun.

Once we were back on track we swallowed up distances quickly. I still wasn’t absolutely sure we were on the right route until we arrived at the top of vertiginous Chalkpit Lane, which snakes down the North Downs towards the M25. Down the side-track we went and found the tremendous view from Oxted Downs towards the High Weald. We sat for a few minutes to admire where we were headed.

The sun was starting to droop so we needed to get a move on if we were to reach somewhere to sleep before dark.

Mud gave way to distinctive gault and we moved quickly to the east, joining the North Downs Way for a while. The Plaque of Lies claiming to mark the Meridian Line came and went and we FINALLY came onto the Ordnance Survey maps I brought with me, which was a relief. Only a few minor alterations of course now took us to the bridge carrying the Vanguard Way over the motorway.

This felt like quite a big thing. Even though I crossed the M25 on foot a few weeks ago on the Thames-Down Link this was the first time that I’d stepped out of London with bigger intentions.

Moments later we puzzled over the huge quarry to the west. Apparently it’s called Chalkpit Quarry but it certainly doesn’t look like any chalk I’ve seen before with its orange sandstone tints.

Night was racing upon us as we entered the northern edge of Limpsfield Chart. This dense woodland is pleasant walking terrain with clear paths and lots little clearings on each side. As we passed National Trust Jeeps we reached the village of Limpsfield Chart.

The Carpenters Arms is a Westerham Ales pub serving some delicious brews. As my shoulders screamed at me I tried to relax myself with 4 pints of beer. It worked.  They also serve fairly pricey food. My Sea Bass was delicious but Martyn’s hogget stew wasn’t up to much and looked small for the outlay. Nevertheless it was a brilliant place to end a tough first day. Tough because of the frequent concern over our route, not so much because of the terrain.

It had been a great first day and on reflection quite an easy start compared to what was still to come.

But before I even reached Plumstead I got a great big shiny bum in my face. The bloke next to me on the bus stood up and his already low-riding jeans decided to give up the ghost completely. Even more unfortunate for me was the fact he was riding public transport commando style. Unpleasant.

But back to the walk:

Starting point: Plumstead Common, reachable by bus from Woolwich.

Finishing point: Mottingham railway station.

Length: 6.2 miles (10km)

I attached myself to the start of section 4 of the Green Chain, where I passed by the day before. Looking south the height of Shooter’s Hill promised views with its tree-lined slopes and patches of open grassland.

You climb very quickly from the main road beside the Common and in no more than ten minutes you are indeed being rewarded with glimpses of city centre views through the hedgerow on the right.

I clocked and skirted puddles with the last vestiges of winter ice stretching across them. Temperatures were on the rise but the harsh winds whipping in from the North Sea were keep things frozen.

The path edged through Shrewsbury Park and sadly avoided the benches at the summit of the main slope. On this occasion they were islands in a wide expanse of boggy grass but the views from them, looking east, are breathtaking.

Mud becomes unavoidable after this as you need to cross the park for an unremarkable alley beside the golf course. The suburban walk from here to the top of Shooter’s Hill was filled with residents going about their mundane business in silence. It feels middle class and content. The perfect tennis courts belonging to the Shooter’s Hill club a testament to local priorities.

Eaglesfield Recreation Ground provides even loftier views and a small playground before you finally get to meet the monolith that watches over the Green Chain walk.

Shooter’s Hill water tower is quite stern but pretty up close. I’ve long watched out for its pointy roof as I traversed the fields and parks of south-east London so it feels like a friendly landmark.

I wanted to stand and snap it for a while but workmen were bustling around all the best viewpoints so I passed on.

Crown Woods lane smells like dung and yeast, fermenting horse droppings? It’s pungent but not repulsive. At the bottom you meet the wonderfully verdant vista of most of south-east London in one go. The café sheltered a few sad looking walkers, even though the day was pristine, so I avoided going in – as I did last time.

Passing the outdoor gym was amusing as young kids tried to master the treadmill whilst also ignoring semi-agitated parental urges to catch up on their half-term walk.

Oxleas Wood came and went easily. I’ve seen a lot of this place recently and every time it grows on me. It’s a thick piece of woodland with clear paths. Almost unpassable after heavy rain but only mildly damp the rest of the time.

Now I followed section 7 of the Green Chain as I did on my walk from Thamesmead, but this time I wanted to hit the ‘Tarns’ at Mottingham.

I discovered the Shuttle Riverway existed and started in Avery Hill Park – another walk for the future!

Passing Charlton Athletic’s training ground I watched their keepers flying around saving shots. The rest of the squad fiddled around with cones and dribbling practise. I wanted to take photos here but two PCSOs were walking my path, picking up bits and pieces from the verges as if they were Eltham CSI, so I got out of there before I became embroiled in the plot. Whatever that was…

I finally took the Green Chain beyond New Eltham train station for the first time and explored the small park and the green space next door. Which is completely dull and pointless. You simply circumnavigate a rectangle of grass and pass a dilapidated club house or changing rooms. Two youths mounted their bikes and rode away as I approached, and that was honestly the highlight of this patch. Woo.

You follow back streets for a few minutes until Fairy Hill Recreation Ground, a park with a lot packed into a small area. Another one of those outdoor gym collections, a kiddies playground, and absolutely shocking instructions to call 999 in emergencies. Tatty tennis courts provide a natty contrast to those seen an hour earlier.

Oh, and surely the only icicles left in the area were those clinging to a lonely and completely sunbathed tree.

Finally and just around the corner comes the Tarn. Was it worth it? Well, yes actually. It’s an odd pond in a dip beside Mottingham Station. The ducks and geese mooch about being pretty and the gardeners work hard to further beautify the banks. There are plenty of places to sit for a bit. Even the decked bridge across the tarn has four small benches on it. The best thing of all is the old Ice Well just before you leave.

Designed to store ice taken from the water’s surface, and retained for Eltham Palace, it would have been covered with thatch to keep it frozen as long as possible.

Mulling on the value of medieval ice I ended my walk just here but you can continue the extra half mile to join the Capital Ring and Green Chain just south of the Palace. Frankly I didn’t see the point as for me there wasn’t anything new to see there and the the transport connections aren’t as good.

For me it finished off the Green Chain once and for all. It’s been a great network of short walks which surpassed my expectations and corrected many long-held prejudices I held about this part of town. This walk provides plenty of views early on and then is just pleasant enough to keep you interested before the intriguing finale. Not my favourite Green Chain route but as ever it is worth your time.

Yet again the sun was only shining on Erith itself. Two thin stripes of lights beating down on the town. Everything else was moody and grey. I stepped inland and the frigid air seemed to warm noticeably.

Nevertheless the rest of today’s walk definitely needed my jacket zipped all the way up.

Starting Point: The River Thames waterfront, just north of Erith railway station (follow Thames Path signage to the start of the Green Chain).

Finishing Point: The north side of Charlton Park, with bus stops on Little Heath taking you to Woolwich or Lewisham.

Length: 7.5 miles (12km)

Green Chain section 2 carries you across road and rail lines and into Frank’s Park. Whoever Frank is he has a nice park.

Excellent blazes are a feature of the day’s entire walk and they are completely clear from the outset despite several potential ambiguities. Though at times I was thankful to have excellent vision because some of the signs are relatively distant and hard to discern from crossroads.

I strode through the tall trees and took in the sounds bouncing over Erith. Tannoys echoed loudly but indistinctly from a factory almost a mile away beside the Thames.

It feels like you are actually in the Midlands with a shift changeover happening in an industrial revolution-era workshop. Part of my childhood was spent in the Nottingham/Derby borderlands and it brought me back to the mid-eighties and the huge but sadly long-demolished Aristoc hosiery factory across the road. As soon as the warped voice died out a strange mid-pitched hum filled the hillside, as if a giant maid was hoovering all of Erith…

As you leave Frank’s Park you walk along the quiet hillside streets overlooking Belvedere. My wife’s friends call this area ‘The End of the World’ but it’s pleasant enough. Apart from the serious dog shit problem. It’s so bad that the residents have resorted to spray-painting stencils onto the pavement asking people to pick it up. I’ve not seen that since I walked the LOOP through Footscray a few miles south of here.

Lesnes Abbey Woods comes next, and is weirdly lacking any of the muck of the residential streets so far. I was almost pounded into the mud by a couple of rampant joggers but after leaping safely out of their way I was free to climb through the woods to the signposted tumulus. The steep downwards curve from here is lovely and quiet. It lulls you into the expectation of a never-ending but completely acceptable banality found in trunks and foliage. Out of the blue you get a wonderful surprise.

How’s that for a treat?! This is the third Green Man sculpture area I’ve found so far in south London woodland. Every time I’ve been delighted to be surprised by them and I have a feeling I have more still to come…

After using Facebook and Twitter to tell everyone I knew that I’d found something beautiful I peeled myself away and followed the path round a bend overlooking the ruins of Lesnes Abbey. I soon found myself back on previously-trodden parts of the Green Chain just south of Thamesmead, which meant that I was free to enjoy my surroundings more than I sometimes might because I didn’t have to keep an eye out for blazes.

By the time I reached Bostall Woods football pitch and cricket nets I was feeling peckish so I was pleased to find a picnic table I hadn’t noticed last time I was here. The cold got to me pretty quickly but I still gobbled down ever last morsel of my lunch and laughed in the face of the murder of crows assembling around me.

Back on the path commencing Green Chain section 4 the sun lit the sparse woodland floor, and this odd deadwood circle.

The sun started to come out strongly for the first time and I crossed Wickham Lane in high spirits. The thin band of woodland beyond had a small London County Council Boundary marker beside the path, but not obvious from the path, so keep an eye out to the left.

Bleak Hill, and therefore Winn’s Common, was bathed in light and cold in the wind, but an unexpected surprise. I don’t know what I expected, but I supposed it to be a bit rougher and sadder. A bit more neglected perhaps. Again I am more than happy to be proved wrong by one of my walks around London!

The Slade Ponds mark the eastern tip of Plumstead Common, in a deep and steep cleft. Beside the fence there’s a sign pointing out the names for everything you are looking at – very useful if you are a rusty naturalist or want to take a break to show the kids what they are really seeing.

Plumstead Common felt weirdly like the verges of Clapham Common.  The Common itself is pretty dull and featureless but there are plenty of buildings of interest. The houses on the south side looking more pricey and pretty than I imagined they would, but the Old Mill pub retaining many of the mill structures. There’s a pretty building with a clock tower on the roof as well but it just houses an Indian restaurant and a carpet shop now.

You pass the start of the Green Chain route up Shooters Hill and will probably notice the hedges beside the tennis courts are full of small birds nests.

Heading ever westwards you find a stark divide in the area’s wealth. The real Plumstead. Tired tower blocks appear, and the roadside houses frequently possess smashed windows facing into the street. The traffic roars along to and from the A205 junction. Crossing onto the magnificently named Ha Ha Road you enter a depressing roadside walk. But you do get glimpses of the old Royal Military Academy to the north, and the towers of the Garrison Church to the south (at least I think that’s what it is), with Shooters Hill and its distinctive water tower forming the backdrop.

Only a cemetery and the grave of somebody called ‘Champ’ lies between you and Charlton Park. I decided I didn’t and don’t want to find out who ‘Champ’ was because, with respect,  sometimes imagination is better than reality. I want him to be a proper south-east London middleweight scrapper, with decades of frantic fights under his amateur belt. All experienced in the scuzzy back rooms of long-defunct working class boozers. Someone the notorious Richardson family might have approached and asked to throw a match, but refused to. Perhaps his real name would have been Don. Perhaps he would have spent the last years of his life sitting in a South London pub accepting all-comers to pay tribute to his faded youth. To strangers a sad character but to those in the know someone deserving respect and the time taken to pop in just to say ‘Y’alright?’.

As I merged real characters from my life with the imagined ‘Champ’ I crossed Charlton Park, briefly scraping along the Capital Ring, and tried to catch views down towards Charlton House. It was still absolutely freezing when I reached the bus stop ending my walk.

This is definitely one of the better Green Chain walks. For me it was full of new discoveries and rethought prejudices. As one of the better signposted walks in this area I have already repeatedly recommended it to some casual strollers, and I do that again to you now. Give it a go.

Having already completed the London LOOP between Kingston and Tolworth Court Farm I opted to start the Thames Down Link from Tolworth instead. Even with these five miles cut off the route total it turned out to be the hardest walk I’ve completed around London so far.

Starting Point: Tolworth rail station, reachable from Waterloo or Clapham Junction.

Finishing Point: The Stepping Stones pub, a couple of hundred metres to the east of Box Hill & Westhumble rail station, trains to London Victoria, Sutton, and Clapham Junction.

Distance: Around 11 miles (17.8km)

I’m writing this the day after I completed the Thames Down Link. I had a very bad cold before I walked it and I have a pretty bad cold today. In the past week we’ve had heavy snow followed by a day or two of thaw. The day of the walk was the first of wall-to-wall sunshine for weeks so I took the opportunity to try and blast the cobwebs and gunge out of my body with a vigorous walk.

I arrived at Tolworth station just after ten in the morning, expecting to complete the route in about three hours, it took me over four.

It’s about half a mile from the train station to the gate on the south side of Kingston Road. You follow the Hogsmill River for only a few metres. Today it was a swollen and opaque torrent compared to the serene and transparent flow of yester-month. A footbridge to the right soon beckons you over the Hogsmill and then another carries you over the Bonesgate stream. This was my first hair-raising experience of the day with about ten metres of thick ice all the way across. Once on the other side, and only after I’d determined that I was on the right path, I headed south. The sizzling noise of the pylons was my only accompaniment as I trudged through the mud and I wondered why I wasn’t on the other side of the river, which appeared to be both paved and ice-free.

Only a few moments later the other side turned into an ice rink and I was pleased to be enjoying ‘only’ deep mud on my side.

Eventually you do cross back over and have to dodge dog turd after dog turd, even around the small playground area. Deshiteful! The ice was relentless between here and Chessington Road, at which point it just disappeared in favour of mud again.

Castle Hill Local Nature Reserve is a bit forlorn with quite a few patches of litter to admire. But the birds were chirpy and the sun was flooding my vision. I had forgotten my Raybans and was rewarded with frequent hallucinations. The green, blue, and yellow blobs imprinted on my retina by the low winter sun made me spot imaginary Thames Down Link blazes where there were none. The ice returned to the floor and reflected the sunlight up at me. It was warm but absolutely impossible to see most of the time.

The path veered along a piece of forestry land edged by notices about felling operations (Horton Country Park). Just as the path became flanked by two large piles of logs I turned left and enjoyed a long tree-lined tunnel of ice and water. Stepping carefully along here I could look down and fancy myself as a helicopter whizzing over fractured arctic sea ice, Sir Davey A’s iconic voice and a sweeping string arrangement narrating my progress. The footing was insecure and there were several sneakily deep puddles to avoid.

The end of this path abruptly turns into almost solid dirt for a while. It’s a very welcome relief and I was already promising myself a sit-down at the next bench for a large gulp of water. The dirt path skirts around an equestrian centre but to the right you can see a tall brick tower presumably in the grounds of the local hospital.

Just after I passed some tasty looking horses I heard a blood-curdling scream from around the next bend “DADDY!”

With quite a large amount of worry that something horrible was occurring around the next corner, or that I was going to find an abandoned child, I stepped on slowly. Then two teenage girls came running around the bend completely out of breath. “DANNY!” they yelled down the track behind me, at a speck that passed me several minutes beforehand.

Just past here there’s a totem pole that I didn’t even notice as I walked past. Only much further down the track did I spot it, and I couldn’t be arsed to go back up and admire it up close.

Lots of joggers and cyclists pound this section and all flashed a smile or a hello. But two extremely ugly and snooty middle-aged arseholes in expensively posy outdoors clothing basically forced me off the track by walking hand in hand across the whole thing. Didn’t even make eye contact with me or bother to acknowledge I’d had to go off-road. I should have just cut them apart with my body, maybe stamping the mud whilst doing it…

*deep breath*

Blink and you’ll miss the turn off from this path, through a small gap on the left. The next stretch is abysmal with mud. There was a bench, but it was an island in the slurry so I passed up on this wondrous opportunity.

On your left is what appears to be an elevated gas pipeline, but it’s suddenly cut short and slightly charred. Probably the ongoing work of the prog-rock terrorists Procol Harum, fresh from their training camps in the Niger Delta. (sorry, an extremely bad joke)

A short dirt track later takes you past some more horses and across into Epsom Common. This was the start of a very difficult struggle. Mud, water, slurry, ice, snow, one after the other in quick succession. Relentless and impossible to avoid. In fact the best footing for several hundred metres was the ice, which was no fun. I did get that long-awaited bench in the middle of the Common but only rested for a few seconds. I wanted to clear the area ASAP in hope of better ground. My cold was starting to get on top of me and I was breaking out in feverish sweats from time to time. Questions began to appear in my mind as to whether this was a good idea…

Ashtead Park came and went without much of an impression, but you’re not there for long. There’s a bit of road walking, and a level crossing, but nothing too terrible.

You enter some pretty pricey housing with the usual accoutrements of freshly washed cars and well trimmed lawns. Suburbia at its finest. A bridleway carries you across the back of a row of period cottages with hefty pricetags (£360,000 if you’re interested) and then you enter Crampshaw Lane. I emptied a pile of stones from my boots whilst perched on a bench, and took in the smell of local household chimneys that seemed a lot like mulled wine.

The path beside the lane heads uphill and varies between mud and slush. A jogger nodded cheerfully as he sped past, and I took the moment to admire the drooping sun over the snow covered fields to the west. I became aware of the distant roar of the M25, like a massive river grinding rocks against each other.

I soon arrived on Stane Street, an ancient Roman Road that connected London to Chichester. Not much is left of the road now except the straight line. It’s an awful walk in this kind of weather. Crossing the motorway only took a moment but I was glad to see the back of it. Stane Street undulated over Mickleham Downs for a couple of miles and the path became more and more icy.

I began to yearn for the end of the route, with the warm pub being my destination. I was feeling pretty terrible now and my legs were tiring quickly. As the path began to drop towards Mickleham my evil knee began to twinge a little but I enjoyed seeing the immensity of Box Hill to my left. Tiny little people struggled towards the summit.

As I crossed the River Mole I congratulated myself on connecting the North Downs Way to my London walks at long last, and as I settled into The Stepping Stones pub I battled my fevered mind to enjoy a well-earned pint of Hog’s Back T.E.A.

This was one hell of a hard walk but I think under the circumstances I would have found it tough even without the virus climbing all over me. I feel a bit sad that I spent so much of the distance looking at the ground but with these conditions I didn’t have a hell of a lot of choice on that front. I can well imagine that this is a stunning stroll in early summer but I wouldn’t recommend it in winter as I’ve found nowhere harder than this!