| Distance | 21 km |
| Time | 4hrs 0 mins |
| Difficulty | 410m climbing |
| Good for | Seeing some new bits of London |
Who new there was an official circular walking route around London? Not me! Well not until I was bought an OS Book listing long distance walks anyway.
Our nearest jumping on point to the circuit was actually the beginning of Stage 10 of the 15 stage circuit, so South Kenton it was. Just behind us you can see the green ‘Capital Ring ‘ signage that showed the way, pretty much without issue.
Shortly after the start we hit Preston Park, a fairly nondescript bit of green space. The noteworthy item was the signage outlining the distance ahead of us. Today’s ambition was Highgate Wood (the end of stage 11), but ultimately we would be going through both Woolwich Foot Tunnel and Crystal Palace Park.
One unexpected theme today was the number of wild parakeets that were to be found in the trees. The first ones were in Preston Park, a few more around Wembley then a large contingent in Highgate Woods.
The walk was part urban, part green space. It was interesting to note the difference in ‘vibe’ (or feeling of safety?) between the various boroughs. It got me thinking whether pride in an area was inextricably linked to wealth (sounds like it should be obvious), but parts of Barnet should have been wealthy, but gave the appearance that people had just given up. Here’s one such example. Its not a bad house, but because its been left to rack and ruin, the rest of the neighbourhood seemed to follow suit.
Moving into some open space in Fryent Country Park, a quick look behind us showed the church atop of Harrow-On-The-Hill.
The patches to our right were populated with a herd of ibex trying to cool down and drink in the summer heat.
At the shoulder of the mountain, we were met with a buffeting wind and what looked like an impossible descent – almost vertical – in front of us. At least we were still on the path as the red & white paint splashes on the rocks attested.
Some of the path had metal roots concreted into the rock face via Ferrata style which were very welcome as we would’ve never made it down otherwise.
Having descended the worst bit we were able to walk along the valley floor to find some shade where we had a stop for lunch. After lunch we carried on the fairly gentle descent until we hit another seemingly vertical drop this time covered in gravel snake down into the woods.
This part of the descent was extremely hard on the legs and we were all very pleased to come out of the woods and onto the road.
Having had another break for a drink the group unanimously decided that the last 5 km to our overnight stop would be better reached by following the road rather than the official GR 11.1 path. After about seven hours of walking we finally made it to the campsite. I think we were all in agreement that this had been an extremely hard day on the feet!
