Walking 35km to West Hampstead

This was a variation on a theme but it has never worked so well before!

The simple aim was to get to West Hampstead around 6pm for the monthly BCSA Get to Know You social taking as many steps as possible. And as I had a reason to leave the house around 10:30 I had a lot of time to do that.

The first part of the journey, as far as Southall (north side of Osterley Park), was driven by PokemonGo and the few target gyms that I have in that area.

After that it was a simple (!) matter of finding new ways to walk to West Hampstead in the time available.

My CityStrides LifeMap shows the roads that I have walked previously and all I had to do was avoid those whenever possible. Of course that was not always easy, or possible, as the significant constraints like railways, major roads, rivers and canals, have limited crossing points and so I kept been drawn into familiar territory before crossing the obstruction and then picking a new route from there. 

For example, the little bulge in the top left of the route was me walking to Wembley Central station to cross the railway lines.

As always, one of the great joys of deliberately walking along new roads is you find new things and Alperton was something of a revelation in a couple of ways. The area by the station has become swamped with nondescript high-rise blocks (bad) and around the corner there is Shri Vallabh Nidhi Hindu Temple (good). 

I had walked to West Hampstead via Wembley a few times previously so had walked all the obvious west-east routes before and that forced me to walk north-south a few times to hit new territory. That was expected and it was good to find things like Wembley Brook.

Soon after crossing the North Circular, and setting a new record for the number of pedestrian lights I had to wait for to cross one road, I came across BAPS Shri Swaminarayan Mandir, also known as Neasden Temple.

While walking, I was mostly following my LifeMap to find new roads but I was also checking Apple Maps to see how far away I was on foot from West Hampstead so that I could time my arrival, I walk at 6km/hour which makes the maths very simple. I made one final turn north towards Dollis Hill from where it was almost a straight line to the finish.

I arrived in West Hampstead just a few minutes before 6pm (seven hours after starting out) perfect timing.

I had objectives targets for this walk (steps, PokemonGo, new roads, arrival time) and I achieved every one of them. A perfect walk.