London's wildest places
Everyone's got London all wrong. It's not a city, it's an urban forest. These are my favorite places to find nature in the world’s capital.
On a random day last spring, I woke up at a time of morning that many people call “late-night.” Usually, I would take such an opportunity to scroll Instagram until I start questioning my life choices, but this time, I looked at the clock and thought, I can do something with this. Instead of opening my phone, I went down to the basement and hauled out my folding Oru kayak, which fits in a backpack.
I left the house while it was still dark and made it to the Lea River Navigation just as the clouds started turning pink. In the daytime, the towpaths here are busy with runners, walkers, dogs, and bicycles. It’s always quiet on the water.
For nearly three hours, I was alone with the birds as I paddled as far north as you can go without portaging over a lock. I spotted dozens of fuzzy young swans, goslings, and ducklings swimming under close parental supervision. Then I watched a swan try to pick a fight with a flock of geese, which is probably the London equivalent of having a standoff with a bear. (Have I gone soft? I also now think cows are scary.) Instead of looking at my phone, I took photos with a digital ‘disposable’ camera, which doesn’t have a screen so it feels like shooting analog.
The line between city life and nature is blurry here. Unlike the manicured gardens of Hyde and St. James’s Parks, Hackney has a lot more natural shades of green. Here, in the marshes and wetlands, you can spot herons perched on branches. On the canal towpaths, foxes dart around bicycles and outdoor living rooms as they head home with their prey. I see them on my street or in my garden almost every day.
Whacky city shenanigans look different here, too. When I first moved to the neighborhood, I went for a walk in Hackney Marshes and stumbled upon pirate clowns doing a show on a circus ship.
I wouldn’t say it was the best performance I’ve ever seen, but it was certainly the wildest place I have ever seen buskers. A crowd assembled in front of the tall grasses to watch an aerial gymnast do tricks above a pile of broken glass.
“What is this place?” I kept thinking.
People often laugh when I tell them I love this city because of its nature.
“I’ve literally never heard anyone say that before,” one long-time resident told me recently.
People usually love the nightlife, or the culture, or the plays. Postcards of London usually feature Big Ben, Tower Bridge, double-decker buses, and one or more iconic red telephone booths. That’s the stuff people want to check off their list when they come here. But my London is the London of canal boats, wetlands, marshes, and thickets where blackberries grow in such quantities that there are always more to pick.
I love the summertime wildflower meadow at London Fields, the baby goats at Hackney City Farm, and the mind-boggling views from Mudchute Farm at the southern edge of the Canary Wharf financial district, where sheep graze in view of the banks. I love the Hampstead Heath Ladies Pond, where women queue for hours on hot summer days and earn respect by wild swimming in January. I love watching mudlarkers scout for ancient pottery sherds on the mucky banks of the Thames, and taking my folding boat on the Tube to paddle through Regent’s Park.
London can be a harsh, unforgiving city, just like any other. But it is so green, it does technically count as a forest. There are thousands of parks and green spaces within its boundaries, and when it’s sunny, it can feel like utopia. In spring, when the trees around my house bloom with purple, white, and pink blossoms, it feels urgent to sit and stare at the view of my garden. I miss it when I travel. This year, I’m planning trips around that bloom.
I’ve taken friends out on the canals with the kayaks at least a dozen times, and it never ceases to feel special. When I want to spend a morning watching the birds, I paddle north toward Walthamstow Wetlands. When I want to show out-of-town friends something novel, I take them south to Hackney Wick, where we can order milkshakes and hot dogs from a boat cafe called the Milk Float.
Sure, I love the big city things, too—going to museums and plays, feeling like I can be a tourist without even getting on a train, and hearing forty different accents in the span of a day. But it’s the nature that keeps me here.
The sounds of wild London
Sometimes I record mini podKassts for my friends when I’m traveling, kind of like an audio painting of where I am. It started as a joke series called “All Cows Considered,” when I hiked the Cotswold Way a few summers ago. Now, we consider many things.
On one sunrise mission last year, I recorded a dispatch from the canal as I drifted along in my kayak. I wanted to share a moment of peace: birdsong, in the city, louder than almost everything else around. Here’s a little snippet of zen. I recommend earbuds so you can really hear the birds.
Five ‘wild’ itineraries for your next trip to London
I’ve been on a mission to find all the best parks in the city, and I still have much to explore. I have some favorites, though, and you’re unlikely to see them at the top of most classic “what to do in London” lists.
Here’s where I go to escape to the forest, go for a ‘wild’ swim, enjoy a riverside pint, and read books in quiet gardens hidden in the busy city center. Scroll all the way down for a Google Map with pins of all my hideaways, which you can save to your phone for your next trip here.
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