15/02/14 - #UKStorm

Miles - 10.3 Miles
Walk Inspiration - Time Out - London Walks - Volume 2
Geocaches - 8

Putney at EveryTrail

Monthly London Loop Time.  To get cheap rail tickets, these plans need to be put into place long before additional information - such as end of the world weather fronts - are available.

On the Friday night, I am glued to Sky News, checking the rail web sites and searching Twitter for the hashtag UKSTORMS.  By god it's rough.  32 valentines days diners are evacuated from a beach side restaurant.  Somehow, I think this would have drama if it had been 33.  Cornwall is underwater.  South East Trains have cancelled all services until 10am at the earliest. 

I am meant to be on the 8:15am from London Bridge to Hayes.  Hasty re-planning is required and I look to complete one of those long distance walks from the Time Out books that I would have no chance of completing on a week night.  My rail tickets might have been cheap, but they are not going to be wasted.

And besides, I have always wanted to go to Putney.

A futile attempt at sleeping - too worried about the trains running at all and it sounds like the roof is being ripped off.  Up before the alarm at 5am and postive tweets back from Virgin and National Rail suggest my 6:40am from Birmingham International is running.

And it is, with a minor delay because of congestion around Milton Keynes.  Tube is all good, so at 9 am, I looking for my first cache on a drainpipe in Putney.

No signs of the flood here.

Looking Eastbound from Putney Bridge

The first part of the walk is uphill, through the town.  Some incredibly good looking pubs in this part of the world.  I have a strong feeling I will be back sometime on a future evening.

Perhaps the best of the lot - cache site two

I leave the tarmac behind and enter Putney Heath.  This is part of Wimbledon Common, a wild heathland.  The only noise is the aircraft overhead and the squelch of my boots through the mud.

King's Mere - Bench provides a good opportunity to gaiter up.  And a sarnie.

I complete a winding walk across the common, attempting to pick up the caches that it contains.  It's amazing to think that I have only travelled to Zone 2 on the underground and I literally in the middle of nowhere.

You've seen King's Mere - Might as well see Queen's Mere

I exit the common at the memorial next to the University playing grounds.  This is where we have the first of two intense downpours.  I would call them showers, but that does not do them justice.  I take shelter by the side of a huge oak to get the waterproof trousers over the top of the waterproof gaiters.  I might as well walk in a wet suit.

By the time I have them on, the clouds have blown away.  I cross into Richmond Park at Robin Hood's Gate.  Think this looks familiar but then I cannot understand why I missed the cache.

Hello Capital Ring - I finished you and then started on the London Loop

Richmond Park is a joy to walk through.  Hunting ground created by Charles I.  Acres and acres to explore.  Today, I am in a new stretch, taking me to White Lodge.

You could explore for a long time

White Lodge.  Subject to Noise Pollution

The walk takes a turn for the strange now.  Having walked through some real wilderness - the walk author, Nigel Williams - takes us back through the seemingly endless high rise estate of Roehampton.  Nothing but tower blocks.  And me, in gaiters, waterproof everything and a dainty little goretex mountain cap, cutting a curious figure for the locals.

There is no logical reason for this stretch, other than for the author to recount a tale of how he saw his own volvo being driven by a thief in this area.

Most interesting thing in Roehampton

To make up for the tower blocks, I am rewarded with another muddy blast across Putney Heath.  Caching gets interrupted by a man on a horse - who just nips into the bushes at GZ and waits.  For a long time.  Not sure what the definition for cottaging on horseback is, but rest assured, there will be one.

Second deluge of the day comes, so I hide in a bus shelter at the top Tibbet's Ride.  Who is Tibbet you ask - a local highwayman, I can inform.  The book has a lot of information. 

A bus comes, emblazoned with "Warren Street".  This would have done me, getting me back to Euston, but after a 10 miler, I have beer in mind.  And my second guide book of the day, fancyapint, has some recommendations.

First, I have to walk back down Putney High Street, taking a diversion through suburbia.  The clouds go again and I am rewarded with a superb rainbow.

In front of some spooky trees

An interesting meander through the streets and I am delivered to where I want to be.

Just look at those accolades

My book suggests this is a little piece of Yorkshire in SW15, containing the full range of that my favourite brewer and best friend - Timothy Taylor - has to offer.  A nice central bar area is adorned with TT beer mats and bar towels. 

"What would like?", offers the friendly landlord and I ask for a pint of Landlord.

"We don't have it" was not the answer I was expecting.

I borrow the wi-fi password to tell the world.

Not Landlord but nicely monogrammed

All pleasant enough though but I cannot spend all day here.  I need to get back to the trains.  I need to find the final piece of a multi cache near Victoria Station that I worked out a month ago.

But First - A different perspective of Putney Bridge

Stage 4 of the London Loop put back a few weeks.  I will finish this and order the tickets.  Let's hope our storm factory has finally blown itself out.