Clocking up the miles: Ealing to Mile End

Date: Saturday January 21st
Route: West Ealing Station to Matt's Gallery, Mile End and Mile End Station
Distance: 14 miles

One of the challenges that we're going to face on the West Highland Way is the last day's walking (assuming we get that far!), which will be 14 miles. Another challenge that we face when we're walking both days each weekend is that things that we would normally do at weekends can get neglected.

When we heard about a Roy Harper art exhibition at Matt's Gallery in East London, the only way that we could foresee to build it into our weekend schedule was to walk there - so that's what we did. And, by happy coincidence, our route took us on a 14-mile walk.

Obviously we will are going to encounter more hills in the Highlands than in Central London, but this was a good way of checking that we can actually walk 14 miles - and also had the advantage of being pretty much in a straight line from our house, frequently dovetailing with the Central Line, and on mainly flat tarmac pavements and paths all the way.

As we live near West Ealing station, the first part of the walk was our usual 0.7 mile stroll down to Ealing Broadway, before crossing Haven Green to the station, then turning onto the Uxbridge Road, to take us past more greenery at Ealing Common, over the North Circular Road and on into Acton.

Acton is not the most picturesque area of West London (though it too has parks and green spaces) but it is one of those places that reminds you of how diverse London is, with Jamaican butchers selling goat's meat next door to Chinese takeaways, Persian restaurants, Japanese hairdressers, Irish pubs, Australian pubs and grocery stores with fruit and veg from all over the world out front to entice you in.

Further along the Uxbridge Road and Acton turns into Shepherd's Bush, complete with its market, another green (at one point the home of the sheep that the shepherds looked after) and Westfield, a mammoth shopping centre that draws people in from miles around (and has resulted in the loss of many household names from Ealing Broadway Shopping Centre).

If you can ignore the lure of Westfield, it's over the roundabout to well-heeled Holland Park, up the hill into Notting Hill, past the crowds waiting for friends at Notting Hill Gate station and straight on along the road. If you want to get away from the traffic for a while, you can cross the road into Kensington Gardens and follow the path that runs parallel with the road all the way through Hyde Park as far as Marble Arch. From Marble Arch onwards, the population count increases dramatically (as does the amount of road closures) as the road turns into Oxford Street. Past Selfridges and the flagship department stores and over Oxford Circus, the road continues (and your walking has to slow down to accommodate all the shoppers around you), taking in the great gig venue, The 100 Club, the boarded up former Virgin Megastore and lots of work for the forthcoming Crossrail project, with the Centrepoint building as an unmissable landmark.

From there you're in British Museum country, heading down New Oxford Street (and the beautifully distinguished walking stick and umbrella shop) and onwards to Holborn, which suddenly reminds you that it is quite elevated, once you cross Holborn Viaduct. At this point distinctive city landmarks like the NatWest Tower and the Swiss Re ("gherkin") building start to dominate the skyline, juxtaposed with cranes and historic churches. The further into the City of London you get, the less shops and cafes are open at weekends, but the more likely you are to catch tantalising glimpses of imposing buildings like the Old Bailey, the Bank of England, the Royal Exchange and St Paul's Cathedral.

And then you find that you are leaving the impressive architecture and banking headquarters behind you as you leave the City and are officially "out East", within the sound of Bow Bells. Once again there is a dazzling juxtaposition of shops selling produce and goods to cater for a whole host of different communities, as well as the Whitechapel Art Gallery, market stalls and a real mixture of old and new buildings.  

The final stretch of the walk took us down Stepney Green (probably the 5th or 6th green of the day!) and over the canal into Mile End and to the gallery, which, of course, was closed (!). So we carried on through the park, past a keenly contested hockey match and finished the walk with a well-deserved pint.

If this walk proves anything, it's that you don't necessarily always need to follow a guidebook - you can just go outside your front door and start walking - and in London, it's a safe bet that you will come across lots of interesting stuff, areas with their own distinctive characters, more greenery than you might think, well-known landmarks and tiny details that you would miss if you were in a car or on public transport.