The Capital Ring from Mottingham to Crystal Palace (January 2026)

This was a day made more entertaining by train line closures, bus diversions and near-zero temperatures. Nonetheless, it remained dry, if Arctic, and ten Ibexers and a prospective member managed to combine routes of variously 15, 10 and 6 miles from different points and still stay (most of the time) in step and finish in the same place. The Ring is a good way to explore London’s parks, Beckenham Place Park being probably the highlight of this stretch, with its impressive and characterful café in the old stables well worth a visit. Crystal Palace was slightly below par given the current refurbishment which deprived us of the opportunity to take a group photo by a dinosaur!

Walking through chilly Beckenham Place Park

It was also good to end the day warming up at a café in Crystal Palace station only hours after Macclesfield Town had put Crystal Palace (current cup holders) out of the FA Cup in what the Beeb described as “the greatest FA Cup upset ever”. We didn’t observe anyone crying in the streets, maybe the locals were all up in Macclesfield at the time. Manchester-based Ibexers are entitled to smirk at this point.

End of walk refreshments

Finally, gratitude to Cathy for bridging the “leader”’s incompetence at start of day by overstretching his luck with a plan that had what could be termed negligible headroom. Hopefully George’s London Loop walk next month will have better luck with TfL (and slightly higher temperatures)!