An early morning start from Kew Bridge for our club trip to the Southbank, via Battersea Reach, and back.
As we were with the outgoing tide, we were pretty quickly down to Battersea Reach. After a short snack break we were off into central London. Traffic was surprisingly light early on the Sunday morning and for a lot of the trip we had the river to ourselves.
Pretty soon we were seeing familiar landmarks, such as the pagoda at Battersea Park and the Houses of Parliament. Big Ben told us it was 11:25am, which meant we had an hour to get to the lunch spot before the tide turned.
We were able to pass directly under the London Eye, much to the amazement of the occupants of the capsules.
We arrived at the beach at Southbank bang on schedule and with an hour for lunch, ordered takeaway pizzas from the gourmet pizza restaurant. We could eat them on the sandy beach, or overlooking the person making a gigantic sand sculpture. Afterwards there was just time for a quick photo opportunity with St Paul’s in the background before starting the return journey. With more traffic and the tide pushing us up river we had to be attentive in crossing and paddling back towards Battersea Reach. A quick stop near to the old Club base at Cremone gave us the opportunity to do some mud larking (a clay pipe, a 1960s specimen bottle and two Bakelite door knobs were found). A long day, both in time and distance (40km), but very enjoyable for a trip we don’t do often enough.
