Going London LOOPy

Middle offspring is off back to Durham tomorrow and I wasn’t at work so he decided that we should walk the section of the LONDON LOOP from West Ewell to Kingston. The route hasn’t been properly mapped and someone has to do it so we hopped on a combination of buses , one from home to Kingston and then from Kingston to West Ewell and the start of our walk which for most of the way followed the Hogsmill River. The Hogsmill’s claim  to fame is that Millais used it to paint the vegetation around poor Ophelia as she lies drowned. It is easy to see why the location attracted him as there was an abundance and wide variety of lush vegetation. We saw a total of three foxes, a woodpecker and numerous other birds including several bright green ring-necked parakeets that noisily make their presence known in several areas around Kingston and Richmond boroughs.

No doubt my expedition leader will post at a later date on his blog at www.livingwithdragons.com but I will leave you with a map (courtesy of OpenStreetMap & contributors) messily annotated by me to show where we wandered. Miles walked by me = just under 10 so I’m off for a soak in a lovely hot bath. If you don’t here from me soon then please send out a search party as I’ll probably still be in the bath but too stiff to get out.