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The Thames Path

We plan to expand this section to include a stage-by-stage description of the path as we walk it, from the start at the Thames Barrier. Until we are able to do that, here is a diary piece giving a flavour of the London section of the path.

• The diarist's view: April 2001

As a consequence of working a lot of funny shifts, I do enjoy a lie-in. Especially at the weekends. Trouble is, I also like a nice long walk at the weekends, in the name of getting away from it all. And the two don't really go together. The reason for this is that nice long walks are traditionally situated in the deep countryside. By the time you've had the lie-in, plus a pot of tea and a cooked breakfast, maybe had a bath and watched (take your pick from) Grange Hill, Charlie's Angels or Robot Wars, it is 4pm. Three hours of driving to reach Norfolk, or Dorset, or wherever, is out of the question and it leads to rows.

And anyway, at the time of writing, the countryside's full of dead livestock. The long-distance paths are closed and walkers are so popular with farmers that they're likely to be shot on sight. A full-scale two week hike on the South West Coast Path (where you often find ten river valleys, each hundreds of feet deep, in as many miles) planned in great detail for the spring, has been abandoned for the year.

Which is where London's Thames Path comes in. It's on the doorstep. You can get there by train in half an hour and so your weekend, or holiday, can be complete. It's an incredibly intense experience because so much goes on along the riverbank as it follows its course from the Thames Barrier through Docklands and the City, along the Embankment and then west and north for around 170 miles. In your mind one day's walking feels like three, because you take so much away.

It starts at the Thames Barrier, although brave souls with boots and a decent guidebook can go and have a look at the estuary. Any lingering taste for adventure is satisfied on the journey out - south east London is not known for public transport and you're on the wrong side of the river for what little there is. The best option yet discovered is Charlton rail station and a ten-minute walk, beginning on a four-lane highway and continuing on a track which appears to lead only to a breakers' yard. But soon you're by the river and it all turns leafy and charming. You can while away time and money at the visitor centre seeing how it works. But you'll probably be itching to set off.

OK. This is meant to offer a feel for the path, not a blow by blow account - time to be brief. Docklands means dirty, heavy industry under the huge, clean East London sky, the wrecks and ruins of the maritime past, slogging round the back of the Greenwich peninsula to avoid the Dome and trying not to get run over at the Blackwall Tunnel. But it's a landscape like no other that you'd have precious little chance of seeing otherwise. In beautiful Greenwich the path is summed up neatly - the tranquil, historic, lovely Trinity Hospitale beside a hideous power station. Greenwich is elegant and lovely and, outside the Naval College the Thames washes the pavement at high tide, leaving it silty and slippery.

The Cutty Sark, Island Gardens across the river, the Greenwich Foot Tunnel. Then Deptford and an alarming section through a housing estate - there's no riverside route. Definite hours-of-daylight stuff and you'd have to pause before recommending it to tourists. Back on the river at Deptford Strand and New Docklands starts to emerge as blocks of yuppie flats interspersed with more traditional communities in social housing. Sometimes you work surprisingly hard to tell the difference. Approaching Shad Thames and Tower Bridge you discover byways you wouldn't imagine existed if you didn't know the area - it's a London you'll never normally see and, once more, it's fascinating. After Tower Bridge you're back on the tourist trail. Try to look at The Tower with new eyes - how often do you see a mediaeval fortress that well-preserved?

Southwark; overcome your cynicism for a glorious whiff of history. Time's well spent on this familiar section just to make sure you take it all in. The amazing modern architecture beside London Bridge. Southwark Cathedral, The Globe and Bankside. Old commercial buildings re-used as desirable shops, offices and addresses. Then Gabriel's wharf, second-hand bookstalls to delay you on the riverside and the South Bank complex, especially the National Theatre. The new "Millennium Mile" through the heart of ceremonial London - outside County Hall and opposite Parliament is where you'll find the crowds. But soon the Albert Embankment gives way to south west London and the river gets an industrial feel again. Lambeth, Vauxhall and derelict Battersea power station seen from close by - when will they sort it out? Time to start counting off the familiar landmarks of London's bridges - here's Chelsea which looks as delicate as spun sugar as you walk beneath it. The river's narrower but still makes the sky look big and clean and casts a wonderful light. A tranquil interlude in Battersea Park - don't forget the Peace Pagoda and wonder to yourself why there are no benches. Albert Bridge, then Battersea Bridge, Lots Road power station and the beautiful St Mary's Church. Riverside flats and offices for the affluent will have you spinning daydreams.

From the River Wandle to Putney's a bit of a slog but the path opens out again at Putney Bridge. This is a turning point; you're out of the city and into posh south-west London; interconnecting village islands in a green sea. Barnes and Hammersmith are boat race territory and the path appears positively rural - hard to imagine busy Chiswick just across the river. The tiny cottages of Strand on the Green are followed by a view of Kew Gardens and the grounds of Syon House. Bends in the river reveal Isleworth's exclusive side then rich, historic Richmond on a section of path which is often flooded. From Richmond to Ham the scenery's truly beautiful and then you symbolically leave London behind with the end of the tidal Thames at Teddington Lock. Ahead is Kingston and Hampton Court, then Surrey itself, behind is thirty miles of largely excellent, stimulating, interesting walking - and not a dead sheep in sight.

What happens after Teddington? Pass. That's as far as I've got. It's all a bit rural in that direction and there may be a farmer with a shotgun. You'll have to ask a walker with more stamina, I'm afraid, as I'm due for a lie-in this weekend.