New challenge - walking the Isle of Dogs

When I first moved to the Isle of Dogs around 4 years ago, I had an idea to print a large scale map and walk the whole of the island, colouring in each street as I covered it. As you can guess, it stayed in my mind as a notion and was almost forgotten.

Fast forward to London Lockdown 2.0 and the idea came back to me. This time as a way to finally get around to satisfying that personal challenge but with the added bonus of taking photos as I went.

So here we are on Day 1 of this challenge. I have no idea how long this will take and I don’t want to rush it. It’s an opportunity for me to get to know in depth a really interesting part of London that’s now my home. An area of London which has more defined boundaries (the river on three sides) than any other. A part of London which was enmeshed in my brain with the Dah Dah Dah Dah da da da of the notes of the East Enders’ theme tune and the strange U shaped area sitting in the bend of the river on that map. But which now has so many new links and connotations.

I’ve bought an editable map and through this I can share my progress as I go. I’ll update the streets/paths I’ve covered in pink and the area I’m going to cover is the whole of the area which isn’t greyed out.

Today I’m going to share two photos. One is the map showing the tiny section I’ve covered so far. I thought it would be good to start in the middle in the absence of any other plan and I’ll pick and choose my areas as I fancy them so it may be a bit random but will be more fun for me and more unexpected for you. The second photo is taken looking across the dock towards South Quay and Canary Wharf and two swans which swam peacefully across.

So, today’s area was part of the circular path around Millwall Outer Dock. This is a very varied landscape. Small new-ish houses with their own moorings, offices, the towers of Canary Wharf in the distance, houseboats, old cranes from the working days of the dock and a watersports centre. It’s got a wide pedestrian path all the way round and is well worth a visit.

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