All too soon, we leave the railway route behind and the trail becomes rockier and more winding.
The piped procession followed the same route, behind the same union banners, as it did at the end of the 1984-5 strike and again when the pit finally closed in 1994.
Convicted murderer Arnis Zalkalns, who was seen on CCTV cycling the same route behind the teenager remains the prime suspect in her disappearance.
At last night's parade, the focus was, as always, on the children, as thousands of costumed kids and their tag-along parents poured onto Seventh Avenue and marched the half-mile route behind the giddy racket of a rented samba band.
The route running from behind the Corso to the Piazza Navona has everything from food shops to small boutiques, with lots of off-the-wall stuff - I can spend a whole day wondering around there.
Sunday's event was a so-called second line parade, the "second line" referring to all those who join in along the route and follow behind the band, making more of a rolling party than the kind of parade one simply watches.
Plastered with Vegas logos, the elevated train plies a route behind the vast hotels that line the Strip - the desert city's main thoroughfare, where tourists can peruse live lions, dancing fountains, a roaring volcano and a miniature Eiffel Tower, not to mention live shows by the likes of Bette Midler and Cher.
Theeb is ordered to stay behind because the route is home to bandits, but he follows the others and they are forced to accept his presence.
After heading down to the River Avon and past the Holy Trinity Church, where Shakespeare's grave lies next to his wife Anne Hathaway's, the route leaves the town behind and sets out alongside the River Stour.
Much of the next area is both residential and commercial in nature, leaving the fields and forests that the route had previously followed behind.
