A Wandle walk

This month, the South West London Humanists walk took us about 8km up the Wandle from near its mouth by Wandsworth Town station to Morden Hall Park in, er. Morden.

I saw an opportunity to turn this in to a bigger walk by walking to Wandsworth and back from Morden. It seemed like a good idea at the time.

The quickest route to Wandsworth is to leave Richmond Park at Robin Hood Gate but that then means walking along A3 so I took the usual Roehampton Gate instead, which explains the rather indirect route.

The planning worked quite well and I arrived at Wandsworth Town (last one there) just after the scheduled 10:30 start. They kindly let me get a coffee before we set off.

I had done the Wandle a couple of times and wanted to do it again because of the variety along the way. 

The river gets lost a couple of times in Wandsworth and Earlsfield, goes through a large park and forms a green corridor through some heavy industry with pylons before emerging into the delights of Morden Hall Park.

We finished with lunch in an Irish pub in Morden. I did not fancy the carvery so I just had a Guinness while I watched Newcastle score 5 goals before saying goodbye to my SWLH colleagues and starting the walk home. I was quickly on known territory so it was an easy walk and a chance to listen to some podcasts.

Having skipped the carvery I needed to eat so I went back to Babylon in Raynes Park (I had had a coffee there a few days previously) and indulge in the veggie breakfast. It was a bit modern for my taste, plenty of avocado but no baked beans, but I was hungry and it did the job.

I took the opportunity to go back through Richmond Park and managed to find a slightly different path to the one I had used earlier in the day.

It was a great day out and the three walks worked well together. In total I did 34km in about 8 hours