Kiwi Roaming

We visited lots of parks in London, they are everywhere and always full of people having picnics, chatting, sunbathing, enjoying the cool of the shade and escaping from their apartments. Two interesting ones worth a mention are both dominated by waterways and worthy a day trip.

#15 – Rickmansworth Aquadrome

A lovely park to visit is the Rickmansworth Aquadrome. It’s massive (41 hectare) park with multiple lakes, playgrounds, green spaces for sitting and having a picnic, good public toilets, a cafe (which does an ok Tuna melt) and lots of walking tracks.

Located way out west and accessible via the Metropolitan line – which is an underground and overground train with ok seats and good air-conditioning – but in zone 7 so will increase your daily cap depending on which zone you start in and whether peak or off peak. We however went with friends so visited by car, and tbh the carpark isn’t big enough for a busy weekend day.

Paul and Karen were meeting friends from SW London in the cafe so we left them to it and went walking around both of the big lakes. On one we were surprised to find the local water skiing club hooning around with a small jet boat and water skiers taking various routes and jumps. The summer has been harsh so the lakes are covered in a green algae making it quite a revolting looking wake behind the skiers. This same lake has fishing posies, flattened spaces with small jetties (like 1m long) where a couple of hardy fisherfolk had their tents pitched and rods out into the water. Lots of signs about permits required and omg how yuck as far as we were concerned!

The other larger lake is home to the local kayaking club who have a larger fenced off headquarters. There were also standup paddle boarders, small sailing boats and rowing boats on this lake. Alongside the lakes is the canal so we walked a bit of the towpath as well. Just as you drive over the bridge into the park grounds there is a massive Tesco and out back of it is canal parking! with canal boats pulled up to do their shopping – how awesome is that.

We got back to the cafe and had a quick lunch then took a very tired 6 month old for a walk around both lakes, needless to say the fun of being with us meant he didn’t sleep and instead talked very loudly (making his car noise) the whole way around before insisting on being carried by Steve for about half an hour. A great place to visit with kids and there were hundreds of them here.

#16 Walthamstow Wetland

On our last day in London it was very hot again (the August heatwave was starting up) so we decided to go for a walk in a park. I have bookmarked this wetland ages ago and we had fully intended to go for the walk then to the Walthamstow market or beer mile.

We got to Tottenham Hale station via a transit in Stratford. Now we had discovered Stratford earlier in the week with the second largest Westfield in London (where we bought a new suitcase) and Olympic Park including London Stadium where West Ham are based. Its station is massive with International and local trains all converging here. With a game that afternoon it was full of West Ham supporters.

Off the train we popped into Tesco Express for our last lunch deal and then started to walk up the tow path. There was no shade and it was getting hotter by the minute, it also wasn’t very inspiring with all permanent canal boats and lots of scrub and rubbish. So we turned around and went directly to the Walthamstow wetlands instead of walking around via the reservoir as planned.

As we walked into the wetland there was a big sign telling us it’s a hot day (which we knew) and there is very limited shelter or shade here. We wandered a short way and found a cluster of tables under trees near a creek so sat there to eat our lunch meal deals.

We could see some of the wetlands from here and decided to go up the old pump house engine room to see the full view and assess our walking options. It was clear from here there was no shade and with the heat already pushing 30 we decided to check out the pub across the road instead. This was lovely, a fab garden with big TV screens showing women’s cricket (the Hundred competition) and Inches cider on tap. A great way to spend our final afternoon to be fair. Sitting in the shade drinking.