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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Thursday, 12 August 2021

Evening Walk - Olympic Park and Surrounds

Length: 8.5 km/5.3 mi km or 9.3 km/5.8 mi [bailout possible at Hackney Wick Overground (5.5 km)] 
Meet at 18.30 hours prompt outside Stratford Station (Mainline, Overground, Underground, DLR), next to ‘Robert’, a heritage locomotive displayed on the station forecourt on the Town Centre side (i.e.: not the Westfield side)! [see the pdf directions for how to get there from your platform w/o fault]
 
This walk follows a meandering route through Stratford City, a development preceding the idea of London applying to hold Olympic Games, and including the very large Westfield Shopping Centre, as well as through the neighbouring Olympic Park and past its surviving Olympic venues, one of the largest urban parks created in Western Europe for more than 150 years, and designed to enrich and preserve the local environment, by restoring wetland habitats and planting native species of plants along the River Lea and the Bow Backwaters. It is still a work in progress, in its continued transition from sports venue to public park, with many new neighbourhoods and amenities added since the 2012 Games. 
This is combined with a detour through parts of the adjacent former industrial areas now famous for artists’ spaces and independent micro-businesses, but undergoing speedy regeneration: Hackney Wick (South) and Fish Island. These areas are still noticeably shaped by their former mix of (often polluting) industries in this complicated space, dominated by railways, canals, locks, river arms, channels, flood plains.
 
For a shorter walk, start from Stratford International DLR Station, passed after 850m.
For a much
shorter walk, Hackney Wick Overground Station is passed after 5.5 km/3.4 mi.
 
For a southerly extension follow the Greenway on top the Northern Outfall Sewer.  
 
Refreshments: Plenty of options en route, for details check the pdf.

For a detailed route map, gpx/kml file, photos and pdf directions click here. T=short.27

1 comment:

Thomas G said...

n=8 walkers tonight in w=balmy weather
A bike race was on at the outdoor circuit at the Velodrome, which was quite entertaining, as the groups of cyslists passed us many times as we followed the route around the course back into the park. Surprisingly, and for the first time, there were no route obstructions due to still more building works and we just sailed through w/o any deterrent. Plenty more bars, pubs and restaurants have opened even since last year; peak eating/drinking out has clearly not arrived yet in Hackney Wick.
There, we did make our customary stop for drinks at the Crate Brewery, but only 1 punter was undeterred by a 40 minute waiting time for a pizza to also order food. In the event, we stayed that long anyway...
There we had also met up with a cyclist we had bumped into twice before, a local SWC stalwart. On to Stratford then, where 4 went for a meal, while 3 went straight home (1 had already walked on earlier w/o turning into Crate).