Our Fave South London Places to Run, Cycle & Walk, brought to you in partnership with Apple Watch
With international travel still looking very precarious, we’ve decided to ditch the vaycay and embrace the staycay, and spend more time right here in London. We may live and work here but there’s so much of the city we don’t see on a regular basis and now is the time to put that right. We’re using Apple Watch to make exploring different parts of town even easier and to provide the soundtrack whilst we do it.
WALK | GREENWICH TIDE
The area by The O2 arena may not scream ‘interesting place for a walk’ but the Greenwich Peninsula is actually home to London’s first riverside linear park. The Tide has 9m-high elevated walkways, timber-decked bridges, and ‘stepping stones’ all lined with native trees and wildflowers. What’s more, the route is dotted with public artworks, including sculptures by Damien Hirst and Allen Jones. We like to think we know a thing or two about art but we’ve definitely asked Siri for some more info about the installations on the walk. As Apple Watch also receives calls, messages and notifications, we can leave our iPhone in our bag and focus on the beauty around us.
RUN | SOUTH BANK
We may have to bob and weave our way through a lot of tourists but running along the river on the South Bank is worth that extra effort because those views just never get old. We run east from Lambeth Bridge so we can get The Shard and Tower Bridge in an iPhone shot (plus London, Southwark and Millennium Bridges light up at night too as part of the Illuminated River project). Getting the perfect ‘gram does require a bit of stopping and starting but if we ever forget to start logging our run in the Workout app, Apple Watch detects when we’re running and pings us a little reminder to start a workout. It even counts the work we’ve already done before we tap so our stats stay on point.
CYCLE | WANDLE TRAIL
We love discovering parts of the city that make us feel like we’re not even in London anymore and the Wandle Trail is one of the best. The 14-mile trail follows the River Wandle from the point where it joins the Thames at Wandsworth down to Croydon, and it goes through numerous nature reserves and parks so it’s all very zen. The Compass app helps us stay on track on the trail and then we can easily switch to Apple Maps when we reach the end at Croydon – no more cycling round in circles trying to get our bearings! We’ve also been known to grab a pint before heading back into town, and using Apple Pay on our wrist means no need to carry extra baggage on the bike.
Apple Watch Series 5 is available from apple.com, starting at £399.