Day 17: The Place Beyond Gants Hill - Hornchurch

HAVERING

Hornchurch Library

6.30 pm

24.6 km from Covent Garden

There are some places in the world that we know only through legends - El Dorado, Camelot and Shangri-La. Of these places none was so frequently mentioned but never seen as the Gant's Hill Roundabout.

For all the early years of my life I knew it only from the early morning traffic reports. There in fabled Gant's Hill there would always be a tailback, or an accident or, at the very least, the sheer weight of traffic.

Last night I passed for the first time through the mystical portal that is Gant's Hill and found myself in Hornchurch, the fertile land that lies between Rivers Rom and Ingresbourne known to locals as the Country of the Lollipop.

Which explains the sign outside Hornchurch Library.

There I was greeted by the Librarians of Hornchurch who fed me the ceremonial coffee and cake (in fact walnut and coffee cake my favourite) before leading me out to bless the audience.

Another ridiculously friendly crowd.

So I bid a sad farewell to the land between two rivers heading home to sleep for on the morrow I would face my most savage challenge yet - the wilds of Barking and Dagenham!