EFOG - flying high from the Emirates to Oxleas Wood - 20th April 2013
Meeting at Stratford DLR station on 20th April 2013 for a trip on the Emirates Cable Car - previously cancelled due to bad weather - we set out on a gloriously sunny Saturday for the Royal Victoria Station, where we met up with Ken - our eleventh member - for the day’s walk.
We were lucky that there was not a queue, and we took over two cable cars for views west across the Thames, O2 Dome, Canary Wharf and the City of London, and east towards the Thames Barrier. If you haven’t been on this ride, it is truly worthwhile as the scenes are spectacular.
The walk started along the Thames footpath to the impressive Thames Barrier. From there south along a well signposted walk, called the ‘Green Chain Walk’ which took us through parks, streets, and commons. Fortunately I had printed a direction sheet, because there are several Green Chain Walks, and we would have gone wrong without it.
Just inside the attractive Marion Wilson Park is a deer compound, followed by a chicken and sheep enclosure. We found a couple of benches near the park exit and had lunch. Maz, particularly, was thrilled to see four horses being led riderless through the park, as they had come from the ‘Riding for the Disabled’ centre nearby. Marion and Ken found a café just around the corner in Charlton Park. When we caught up with them, some of the ladies had the pleasure (?) of using the toilets in the men’s football changing room, much to the consternation of the attendant! Amina, not wanting to use the gents was asked to take some toilet rolls across to the ladies toilets, only to be told by the attendant there that toilet rolls constituted a fire risk, and she was to take them back!
Crossing Eltham Common and into the trees, a long flight of steps through Castle Wood lead up to Severndroog Castle, a 63-foot folly built in 1784 to commemorate death of Commodore Sir William James who attacked and destroyed a pirate island fortress on the western coast of India in 1755. Just after the castle, down a few steps, is a formal garden overlooking the countryside.
From there it was a short walk through Jack Wood and another formal garden to a welcome stop at a café on a hill in Oxleas Wood. By now we were near the end of our walk and, having gone through Oxleas Wood to a main road junction, I found that I did not know where we were and how we were to find Falconwood Station. With a guess that turned out to be correct we were on our way home.
Peter G. 28th April 2018