Sun 13th May - Thames Barrier to St Pauls

A beautiful sunny day. We caught the 177 bus from near the hotel to the Thames Barrier. Sue, our walking companion was already there waiting for us. Sue's daughter Tamzin walked with us on this first day - we met up with Sue's son Lawrence later on who was walking from the opposite direction until we met up. On the negative side, this first stage was frustrating as there were lots of temporary diversions which meant you were taken away from the riverside around various building sites. On the plus side we passed sights like the Cutty Sark. We found out very quickly you have to keep your eyes peeled for the Thames Path direction signs - they pop up all over the place but are cunningly positioned sometimes so you can easily miss them.  We went wrong more than once! We seemed to spend most of the day seeing two sights in particular. One was Canary Wharf which seemed to be a constant companion. The other was The Shard - a new building which is the tallest in London and never seemed to be out of sight wherever you were. One other point to note. Walking in London using walking poles gets you some strange looks - from the comments we got, some people don't seem to have come across walking poles before! So .. 12 miles done and an awful lot left!