This is a report of a walk I did with my wife in May of this year, which I hope might be of interest. But before I go any further, I must say how proud I was of my wife who smashed her previous best distance for a walk by an amazing 6 miles! On this walk she did
22.6 miles!!
We did the Canterbury Outer Ring Walk, which is a relatively new route, and which doesn't appear on OS maps. One day, a rather impressive signpost appeared near the church at Blean as I walked past on my regular route between Whitstable and Canterbury. When I got home I found the Canterbury Rings Project homepage online and learned that the Outer Ring is one of three new named walks with the Middle and Inner Rings (unsurprisingly) being much shorter. The website provided a GPX file that I loaded onto my Satmap and I was all set for a solo walk.
However, when I mentioned the route to my wife, she said that she'd like to do the walk with me one day, but would require good weather and a rest day either side! So I said no more about the walk because I know she likes to decide for herself when the time is right. And then one day, quite out of the blue, she announced that she'd like to do the Outer Ring Walk on the Sunday before May Bank Holiday Monday - provided there would be a couple of coffee stops along the way. No problem...
We parked in the very convenient car park by the church at Blean just yards from the route and set off in the anticlockwise direction.
The signpost is very impressive, but stating a distance of 20 miles is a little misleading. I'd noticed that the route came up as 21.6 miles when I viewed it on the OS Maps website and that distance was confirmed by my GPS device... and on the Canterbury Rings website itself! And, of course, almost every walk turns out to be a bit further than planned simply because little extras get added along the way - returning to a missed waymarker for example. As I said, we did 22.6 miles and added no more than a couple of hundred yards of that ourselves...
We're not complaining though and, as it turned out, going the extra mile (or two) meant that my wife did more than 50,000 steps on the walk - her most ever - and which gained her a new Garmin badge.
We took quite a few photos along the way; here’s a small selection...
A couple of miles into the walk, in Blean Woods near Harbledown:
I do a lot of walking on the North Downs Way and it passes through the woods behind me in the photo, but I'd never arrived at it by coming through this delightful orchard and the hop-field beyond before. In fact, I'd thought that I'd probably done most of this route before on previous walks, but there was a lot that was new and I discovered several excellent alternative paths that I'd previously overlooked.
I have to say that the waymarking of the route was excellent – among the best I've ever encountered. As well as the usual discs with arrows, there are stickers of various sizes everywhere! Only once did we head the wrong way (for about 50 yards) and that was because we hadn't noticed a waymarker disc by a stile. Actually, we hadn't even noticed the stile!
An orchard about a mile before Bridge:
11 miles into the walk and we arrived at the first coffee stop. Bridge has three pubs and a tea room all within 100 yards, so there was a good choice. We chose the pub that had a Canterbury Rings sticker on the lamppost outside...
The route follows the Nailbourne for a few miles near Bridge and Littlebourne and we crossed it several times. The Nailbourne is an 'occasional river' which flows only when the water table is high:
In charming Patrixbourne, between Bridge and Bekesbourne, there are both bridges and fords. That's a puddle, not the Nailbourne, in the photo:
A lovely spot on marshy farmland just before Littlebourne...
There are a great many woodland paths on the route and spring is probably the best time to enjoy them. Bluebells were a common sight - as in these woods near Littlebourne:
As we arrived in Fordwich (famously the smallest town in England!), we passed the 18 mile mark and headed for a pub for coffee. The pub was busy and we waited a very long time for the coffee to arrive... I grumbled a bit and we were given our cappuccinos for free.
At Broad Oak we passed the 20 mile mark, which was worth a small celebration. Oddly, we still had more than two miles to go!
And finally... just a couple more fields to cross and we'll have done it!
We both agreed that the Canterbury Outer Ring Walk is absolutely brilliant! It has obviously been extremely carefully planned because it uses excellent clear paths, bridleways and byways, with just a very few quiet lanes. It has a great mix of woodland, farmland and lovely villages, and frequent wonderful views. And it is incredibly well-waymarked. A walk well worth doing and highly recommended!
