A 25km stroll to Waterloo

The walk to Waterloo is one my regular companion and I do several times a year so the only planning required was to agree what time to meet at Pembroke Lodge in Richmond Park. We set that as 9:30am so that meant we both had to leave our homes at 9am.

The route is simple, we take the path around Richmond Park (because that is where the path goes), exit from Roehampton Gate, head for the river at Putney and then follow it to Waterloo.

We walk this route because it is a good length, 25km, is easy walking, there is plenty of interesting things to see and it is always changing through redevelopment.

The two highlights this times were the large blocks of flats being built across the road from the waste transfer station in Smugglers Way, Wandsworth and the recently opened Battersea Power Station site.

 

Battersea Power Station was interesting and quite busy too, Not all of the units are open yet though many/most are. These are a strange mix of the expected upmarket shops and some unexpected chain shops, e.g. Paperchase. We were looking for somewhere trendy to have a coffee and walked past both a Starbucks and a Pret before we found Paris Baguette which while a step up from the other chains still had a chain feel about it.

The former turbine hall is impressive in scale and the decorations are a nice touch. It is just a shame that they have filled it with what looks like a standard shopping centre.

The other disappointment was that the path in front of Battersea Power Station is still not open so we had to head inland and around another area is impending development. Unfortunately going around things is a feature of Thames Path on both banks.

We got to Waterloo almost spot on 2pm which means that we covered the 25km in five hours which included two coffee breaks. A decent walk at a decent pace.