Bushy Park

In which I foolishly attempt to walk across the open space of London's second largest Royal Park under the baking sun of perhaps the hottest day of 2012.

Bushy Park

Google Maps

My photos

Official site

Skyline spotting from London's hills

The Shard has taken most of the headlines by claiming the title of tallest building in the EU (and, briefly, Europe, until overtaken by Moscow's Mercury City Tower). But it's not alone: London has an ever-going range of skyscrapers, some designed by renowned architects; some designs great, some... debatable.

In this piece I do a round-up of some of the best publically accessible high points in London for a panaromic view of London's skyline.

Wandle Trail

A long-time resident of Wandsworth borough, I have long been aware that the borough takes its name from the River Wandle. This is a river I cross almost every time I go to central London, and yet in Wandsworth town centre is scarcely visible.

This is, hopefully, to change, as I will touch upon later. However, at present the nicer stretches of the Wandle are further from the Thames, as I discovered when I impulsively decided to vary my diet of Thames riverbank strolling with an exploration of my local tributary.

Richmond Park

I thought it would be fitting to open this blog with Richmond Park. I have been lucky enough to live between "fairly close" and "very close" for most of my seven years in London, and as such it has been my default place to go when I fancy a ramble in non-urban surroundings.

In a strange way, this made it a kind of 'inspiration' for this "Exploratory" blog. I was motivated to seek out new places to explore due to a kind of boredom about coming here so often. I feel wary of using the word boredom, because while it is the only word that seems to convey the urge for new strolling grounds, it is also very unfair.

See, the thing is, I sometimes feel sort of bored of Richmond Park when considering where to go, but whenever I get there I love it nonetheless.

What do I like about it? Here are the top three things...

Hello world

Hello world.

I'm Steve and I like to go for exploratory strolls with a camera, mostly in London, where I live, but in other places too whenever I get the chance.

I have made this blog to document some of these strolls.  It may or very well may not be interesting to anyone other than me.

Favourite targets for strolling include: rivers, canals, lakes, seashores and water in general; parks, heaths, commons and grasslands in general; bridges, tunnels, railways, infrastructure in general; trees, forests, and woodland in general; skyscrapers, castles, architecture in general.