And so it ends... 160 miles later

Saturday was the last London Loop day - and somewhat fittingly it was just the four original walkers who were walking. Come full circle - so to speak!

We'd been worried during the week as yet again the weather was bad, then I was struck with a cold. I took a day off on Thursday, worked Friday, cancelled a Friday night out as I knew I wouldn't be able to both go out and walk on Saturday, and then we all had a crack of dawn start to get to Harold Wood to begin the final 13 miles...

It was actually a much nicer walk than we had been expecting. Aside from one unpleasant road stretch, most of it was good. A bit whiffy at times as we walked past the landfill (where most of London's rubbish ends up). And we ended up on a long stretch along the Thames - from where we could see Erith - where we had started walking back on 14 September 2008.

For our final walk we didn't see any scary dogs, or crazy horses - but did meet some racing greyhounds - include one called Ardbeg Kate who I was going to put a bet on, but was too poorly the next day. (Ardbeg is my fave whisky - it seemed like a sign!). We also walked past concrete barges that were used during the D-Day landings - just hanging around in the mud now - and the Tilda rice factory. No doubt we've all eaten rice that had been through there!

But it was cold! Winter has now turned up here, so it was definitely the coldest walk we'd done for a while. There was even an ok pub at the end so we had a bottle of bubbles to celebrate our achievement at the end :-).

Next up for Nicola, Jackie and me is the Capital Ring...