Day 22 [The Last One]

It's the last day of the walk and we did a final dash of 25 km to complete a 360 km walk (it should have been only 312 km according to the map but we did a few detours to get to our chosen accommodation and to catch some special things we wanted to see along the way). The main thing is that we made it! Three cheers to us! [you may have guessed we are pleased]

The last walking day (yesterday) was long and we didn't get back till about 8.30 pm. Hence the delay in writing this. Started off from our accommodation (below) by 9.15 am but by the time we arrived at Vauxhall (where we finished the previous day) it was 10.15 am.

It was a completely different walk on the final day - it was through a major city, it was full of tourists, and it was very difficult to decide which things to photograph. We didn't take any pictures till we arrived at the Lambeth Bridge (with Westminster Abbey and Parliament House in the background) - couldn't ignore that! Pity that the Big Ben is draped in black for some maintenance work.

Southwark Bridge with St Paul's Cathedral and some of London's unique skyline was next. Of course we couldn't not capture the Tower Bridge.

Lot of high rise buildings right on the river (including those renovated old wharves and warehouses) are residential.

Walking was hot work and we had checked out two pubs by early afternoon (no alcohol though - walking and alcohol don't mix too well). Nice pubs nevertheless.

Cutty Sark (1870 British clipper) looks impressive.  The Canary Wharf, the major financial hub is just across the Thames, visible only as high rise. For some reason sailing craft appear to congregate in this stretch of the water. Obviously a lot of jets take off too, making geometric patterns in the sky.

Despite all this, our thoughts were focused only on one thing - the Thames Barrier; our finish line ... and our sore feet!

A sight for sore eyes (and other parts of the body) - it's like seeing your nearest and dearest after a long separation! We were so chuffed that we even photographed each other in front of the barrier! That doesn't happen often.

There is a pretty good video of this on Youtube.

That's game set and match! Thank you umpires, thank you ball boys! All that remained was to stagger to the nearest pub for celebratory drink (one only as we had to catch trains back to Putney).

Took a long time to get to Putney so we had dinner at the local before heading home. It turned out to be a day of Four Pubs and a Coffee Shop [perhaps not as good as 'Four Weddings and a Funeral' but we will use Nicole Kidman and David Gulpilil for this one - sorry - a private joke].

Summary - 360 km 22 Days.Started aged 70 & 65; finished aged 85 & 80! Loved it, nevertheless.

No more writing. Three cheers for the readers (and us)!