Richmond Deer Park Safari
This was an all random hike of around 30 strangers walking together, who signed up on meetup.com. The hike took place on 5th March 2022 and was organised by Catherine Baker our host.
The hike started from The Quadrant, Richmond station at 12:30 pm where our host briefed us about how long it's going to take to complete the hike, how everyone needs to behave & stay distant from the deers & feel free to pee in the bushes as it’s a safari hike and had limited washroom access.
We started on time, walked towards the beautiful Thames river alongside which everyone started saying Hi to each other. Most of the crowd was cross-culture making it even more unique. I could see us walking reverse towards Kingston and at the Nightingale lane bus stop, we crossed the main road to climb a slope towards the Richmond gate of the Richmond Park.
We have been walking for an hour already and then we take a quick 15-minute refreshments break at a cafe in the Park. There were restrooms, food to eat, coffees to take on the go. People chatted, still getting to know each other and then disperse. Let me quickly recall all the friends I made and the conversations that happened with each one of them.
Alexandria, a homemaker and a mother, is basically from Latvia. Living with her family in the UK for the last several years.
Sarah, a Mirror Imaging course student at UCL. She is from Iran and we had some deeper dive into the current Ukraine-Russia situation. None of us supported the Russian president.
Jose, a self-employed engineer who also had some knowledge of the software. He was from Spain and I had gathered it from his accent already.
Sunny, a Chinese girl who worked in an energy company in Central London. She lived with her husband in the Surrey area. We both discussed my friends in Beijing, our work experiences so far. She also mentioned how difficult it is currently to travel to China due to COVID quarantine still imposed. Also, the flight fares being all-time high.
Dana, an entrepreneur herself and a designer, wife of Nick who was also on the hike. She was from Lithuania but has been living in the UK for past 17 years.
Nick, a retired CAD engineer himself, husband to Dana, he last worked for Ford before the retirement. His brother had visited India once in the past as he mentioned.
Jaya, an NHS worker herself, belonged to Kerala, India. She has been living here in Watford for the last 4 years with her husband and her daughter. We discussed the struggles of looking after infants, the process of getting an ILR in the UK, college cultures etc.
A beautiful square decorated for awareness of cruelty to animals, just before we entered the gate.
A candid pic of how it looked walking together inside the park.
A beautiful & colourful duck to visit the way.
Catherine stopped us all in between, just before we reached the pub to brief us all in short about upcoming treks and hikes that she’s planning on.
Our final stop is the Dog and Fox pub in Wimbledon.
To our hard luck, there were no signs of deer at all nor anyone could spot the Womble. Catherine had announced a 50 buck on the spot prize for anyone who spots a womble. We walk in full stomach, empty-handed and we walk out empty-stomach, empty-handed. Nonetheless, we all made such good friends and a memory for a lifetime. Hence, this story, to keep it always in my cherishable memories.