April 15, 2004: Kingston to Hatton Cross
Young Mallards afloat
Quite a bit of time elapsed before it was time to hit the trail for the first time in 2004; weather was one negative factor, but for almost a month I had also been suffering from a series of back injuries, including a form of sciatica, and leg problems – many of the latter attendant on two falls suffered while I was making my way unsteadily along. I had endured, in the last few weeks, multiple sessions with physiotherapists, one excursion in acupuncture, back x-rays at St. Mary’s, and two sessions with an osteopath. I wasn’t at all certain how well I might do on this day, but Tosh had been nagging me for weeks – and so it was time to give it a try on a mild if not overly sunny Thursday. We would resume with what I mistakenly assumed would be an easy nine miles on the London Outer Orbital Path. It had been exactly six months to the day since we had last walked together.
I telescoped my walking stick into my backpack, stuffed in a variety of bandages and unguents and left the house at 8:50. As I was making my way to the tube stop I could already feel a little pull on the calf ligament of my right leg – but nothing too debilitating. When I reached Waterloo I attempted to find my 9:33 train to Kingston – but this was not one of the stops listed on the TV screen for this train. A chap at inquiries told me that I wanted track 5 but the guard here was also dumbfounded that Kingston had not been included on his signs. A second guard finally found a reference to this Thameside town on the notice board and, with only two minutes to spare, I sat down in the last car, only to be followed by a pleasant Asian young man who said, “Is this the train to Kingston?” I assured him that this was the best info I had at the moment, and we were soon reassured by announcements from our driver.
I arrived shortly before 10:00 (fifteen minutes before I had expected to get here), hoping that the Lees were also aboard my train – but they had gone to the wrong platform in Wimbledon and didn’t arrive until 10:15. When they did show up (Harold looking as though he would collapse at any moment: in short his normal buoyant self) I suggested we had better stock up on food at the station shop, which we did.
It was necessary for us to start at the railway station, rather than at the corner where we parted last October, because the Lees had jumped on a passing bus then, and I had no confidence I could find this spot again now. Anyway, David Sharp begins the next stage of his description at the station and so, at about 10:25, we were off.
It was grey and cool as we crossed over at a set of traffic lights and headed along Fife Road, mixed up with the shoppers in a pedestrianized precinct near Bentalls. Crossing to the south side of the road we were soon climbing along the footway of Kingston Bridge and thus over the Thames itself.
On the opposite side I spotted the White Hart, the Hampton Wick pub that Chuck Sidman and I (and our dogs) had used as our lunchtime stop on our second day on the Thames Walk in December, 1988. At a roundabout we turned left, crossed a roadway and headed up a street called Church Grove. An iron gate opposite the church itself permitted our entry into Bushy Park, where a wide path topped by chestnuts – just coming into leaf – lead westward. Almost immediately we encountered the resident schizophrenic, a young woman babbling about dog walking and social workers and clutching a giant teddy bear as she passed us by.
I had to follow Sharp’s directions closely as there were no LOOP signs in evidence anywhere on today’s route (they had been plentiful leading into Kingston) and I got the compass out too so I could make sure that the various turnings on grassy paths were taking us in the right direction for Oval Plantation and Leg of Mutton Pond. While we were reaching the watercourse that emptied the latter I concluded, for the Lee’s benefit, an account of my recent struggles to complete all of our bookings for the Dales Way walk, scheduled to begin on June 22.
We passed a second pool, Heron Pond, and headed northwest, amid many locals and their kids, in the direction of an ancient hand pump and a crossing of the Chestnut Avenue (with distant sightings of Hampton Court Palace on our left). Heading mostly west we were soon inside the wonderful Waterside Gardens, which we entered by a narrow gate. This proved to be a lovely time of year for a walk along the water’s edge – with azaleas, rhododendrons and bluebells already in bloom – and daffodils still rampant. The unusual sight of the aerial roots of the swamp cypress greeted us on the right and several unusual species of ducks, including the brightly-colored Mandarin, made their homes in the ponds.
There was a brief gap between sections of the Gardens and here we beheld no fewer than eight Basset Hounds – each trailing ever more slowly the leaders of the pack – making their way along a track. We turned right a few times to head north along the edge of woodland, emerging at last at the Cobblers walk. Here we took a brief jog to the right in order to continue in a northerly fashion toward Upper Lodge. We passed this on the right, soon finding a metaled walkway (more use of the compass) which we took north-by-north east to leave Bushy Park – to enter the first of several sections devoted to lower middle class suburbia. The sun was breaking through but it was patchy and rarely warm on this day.
Laurel Avenue was dominated by dustbin men as we made our way up to the A313. It was four minutes to 12:00 and we could see a pub on our left, but, having bought some food already, we decided to give it a miss. A pub lunch on this day would have added to a problem that was already becoming evident. The perpetually double-booking Lees had house guests whom they had to meet at the theater this night (and they had forgotten the tickets at home) and Tosh was in her usual lather (Harold was confident there was plenty of time for everything) and she was charging ahead at a pace much faster than my sore legs appreciated.
Nevertheless we persevered along Kings Road, soon turning west along Connaught Road. Across the 311 we continued west along Burton’s Lane (well, it had received an upgrade to Burton’s Road since Sharp had produced his text). From the map this street looked as though there might be a convenient common for a picnic on its north side but, in fact, the green land was a golf course, well-screened from the local residents by fence and woodland, and so we plodded on endlessly, rock blaring from bedroom windows, finally turning away only when another main road joined us on the left.
Here we turned half right, passing through part of a huge sports complex where, I suppose, there still seemed to be a public right of way. Again we disdained a pub stop, turning right on the A305 Staines Road and crossing to its north side to follow a twisting suburban progress (including a stretch on coyly named Bye Ways), then turning north on the Hospital Bridge Road to cross the River Crane, whose parkland, I promised, would produce a much more wholesome picnic site than any place encountered so far.
We had to drop down diagonally over well-tended grass to reach the riverside path, soon passing beneath a tunnel, and continuing into woodland with some charming riverside vistas. I figure we had completed just about half of our walk at this spot, which was full of kids and dogs – the latter including some black Labs who were enjoying an occasional dip, plus a Pointer, a Bull Terrier retrieving his red ball from some stepping stones, and a Shar-Pei.
I had nominated the Shot Tower, a former site devoted to the gunpowder industry, as a likely spot for a sit down because I had seen pictures here of two old millwheels, which I knew would make good seats – and they did. I was glad to slump down at 1:00 or so because by this time the pain in my right calf was becoming ever more evident with each step, and I used the stop to rub some ibuprofen gel on this spot and to encase the lower leg in a kind of stretch stocking that had been supplied, several years earlier, when I had broken my left elbow. I wasn’t very hungry but I did eat some Doritos and an egg mayonnaise sandwich.
Then, with the promise of a pub only a mile ahead, we packed up, placed our litter in a bin, and continued forward along the river for a bit more. This idyllic interlude came to an end when we reached the A314, where we had quite a detour to accomplish before returning to the river. The pub promised in Sharp soon appeared on the right and so we entered the Duke of York at about 1:45. The Lees ordered coffee and I had just a few sips of Diet Coke. While I was extracting my walking stick from my backpack I asked the Lees to find out what town we were in. They had some trouble getting an answer from the French barmaid, but eventually they returned with Hanworth as the desired response. Tosh went to the loo only to witness the gagging of an Asian bulemic and at 2:00 we were off, using some nearby traffic lights to cross the road.
We were heading in a northeasterly direction and perhaps we walked a block or so too far after crossing the railway lines – as I was looking for a fence into the nearby recreation ground and there was only a low railing. This we eventually hopped in order to begin a bit on the grass and to pass a stile and a brief band of woodland, emerging onto the empty vistas of Hounslow Heath. I had to be very careful with the compass and the written directions because there weren’t many landmarks (one instruction called for a turnoff in the direction of a church spire against a background of office blocks – all several miles distant). We made all the right turnings as we approached and then crossed a golf course, reaching a millstream at last and then a bridge over the River Crane – where walkers were once more permitted to make progress.
Here I suggested that the agitated Lees could now speed ahead of me (as Tosh was planning on a bath as well as a change of clothes at home) and I was finding it increasingly difficult to keep up with them – even though I had been using my stick since the Duke of York. I offered the pair either the guidebook or the compass – as the route seemed straightforward enough on the OS map in Sharp’s book – stay along the river until you reach the third road crossing and turn left for the tube stop. Tosh wanted us all to go home immediately, but I knew this would leave an awkward next stage – and I declined. Somewhat shamefacedly my walking partners agreed to continue without me, accepting neither book nor compass, and soon they were speeding off in the northwesterly direction the route now called for.
To tell the truth, I was a bit relieved to see them go, as I could now afford a much more gentle pace. At the first bench I sat down to lengthen my walking stick and then continued slowly along the river as far as the Baber Bridge and a road crossing on the A315, opposite a pub. Then it was into Donkey Wood and over a sluice and a footbridge. Much to my surprise I could see the Lees waving at me from the next bridge (which I thought would be much farther along). They were pointing to the west side of the river and I was walking on the east, where there was a much better path, but I had no problems joining them on the bridge itself, where they had decided to wait for me because they had found the continuation of the route to be very eroded and overgrown and they knew I could use some assistance.
I appreciated their concern and we were soon fighting our way forward amid junk and vines (Tosh fell once) as the narrow path made its way behind the walls of an industrial estate, over some improvised duckboards, and up to a metal ladder stile onto the next bridge, an impediment that I found very difficult to surmount with my painful right leg – even with the assistance of the others.
I assumed that we had one more riverside stretch to go, but the way forward here seemed very difficult – with Department of the Environment Signs warning the unauthorized to keep out. The traditional blue entryway was still intact on our right so we tried to continue on a path that led away from this spot but it was soon in such an overgrown state that we had to give up and retreat in confusion to our last bridge. But which one was it?
We headed south and up to a motorized corner, presumably on the A312. Tosh went into an auto supply store to get directions to the Hatton Cross tube stop from here, and we asked for further details from a chap on a street along one side of a gigantic 24-hour Tesco. Unfortunately I didn’t have an A-Z (many of which don’t come this far west anyway) and we had walked off Sharp’s map. So it was really hard to figure out where we were and I found this irksome indeed. Nevertheless we persevered along whizzing pavements for the batter part of thirty minutes, the Lees saying goodbye for a second time as they rounded a corner and spotted the tube stop. They waved once more a few minutes later and I thought I had lost them forever but they had a long wait at the three-stage pedestrian crossing of the (presumably) A30 and I caught up with them here too. They also just missed a Piccadilly Line train and so there they were again when I at last descended the steps down to trackside. It was 4:00 and we had walked ten and a half miles.
When asked at the outset what time they would be home I had told the Lees between 4:30 and 5:00 – but after our train pulled in it began to look like the latter time would be far more realistic because we just inched along, moving forward only a few hundred yards at a time into Acton Town station, where there had been a track failure. I mentioned to the Lees that this service must be an eye opener for foreign visitors on their way in from Heathrow. There was a Dutch couple opposite us and he, finding this remark hilarious, translated it for his wife.
The Lees really did say goodbye at Acton Town but it was another miserable hour or so before I got home, arriving back in Maida Vale almost two hours after reaching Hatton Cross. I was knackered, the top of my hamstring was quite sore (sitting on the tube had been a chore) and my right calf was very painful.
I filled a hot water bottle and rested this part of the leg on top of it, finished my pineapple and coconut juice, had a whiskey and took some ibuprofen. I also called the Lees and left a message on their machine – I would not be joining them to black out a mistake in the Democrats Abroad newsletter at their house the next day. I kept Dorothy awake with my thunderous snoring but in the morning I was surprised I wasn’t more sore. I saw my osteopath at 4:30 and she was astonished that I had covered so much ground the day before. I was pulled, prodded and pummeled and sent home to see just how long it would be before I was brave enough to attempt another day in the countryside.
Our next walk on the LOOP can be found at:
Day 9: Cockfosters to Enfield Lock
To continue from Hatton Cross you need to look at: