Friday was not much warmer than Thursday in London, just a little calmer. We were still on the boat-race stretch, with evidence all the way to Putney as crews in training passed us on the river in each direction. There was also a lot of boating coming and going on the land. We passed Boat Race landmarks: the Leg o'Mutton (which we couldn't see for the trees), Hammersmith Bridge and the Harrods Furniture Repository.
Beverley Brook (also familiar to us as a character in the Peter Grant series) joined us just before Putney.
After passing Putney, the path changed completely: it was now truly urban. Since arriving in Greater London, the path underfoot had generally been metalled with some sort of chippings. But once we passed Putney, we were always walking on a hard surface: tarmac, concrete or paving. Where we encountered green areas - as in Wandsworth Park - this was formal planting, not the sort of semi-wild random growth were had seen along the riverside from Teddington.
What the guidebook describes as "one of the path's less attractive diversions" at the mouth of the Wandle, reminded us, as we passed a recycling centre and sundry industry, that we were now in the middle of the metropolis.
Passing along the Wandsworth and Battersea banks, there were cranes eeverywhere and swanky new flats going up. We were, however, struck by by how quiet this area was in terms of human activity: whereas earlier in the day we had been accompanied by joggers, baby-walkers and dog-walkers, along here it seemed very few people actually live here. This is a sorry story.
Lunch was taken at the Prince Albert a good break after having completed most of our walk for the day, followed by an ice-cream from La Gondola al Parco in Battersea Park (a proper Italian place in an Art Deco building).
As we approached Vauxhall, the river continued to widen and we began to see landmarks of central London ahead.
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