Last year, my wife and I did a walk through the countryside around Canterbury called, appropriately, the Canterbury Outer Ring. It was 22.6 miles, and it was the furthest my wife had ever walked. We took it fairly easy, stopping once to eat our sandwiches and twice for coffees.
Today, we set out to beat that walk by doing a full marathon. We actually did
26.6 miles, because it's much better to do a little more than a little less in these situations.
Not only did my wife walk 4 miles further than she'd ever walked before, but we didn't stop at all this time - we ate our snacks and sandwiches on the move. The walk took
7 hr 45m and our average speed was
3.44 mph.
Our route took us through woods and across farmland before we crossed marshland to the coast. Then it was a simple matter of following the coast back to Whitstable and home.
The weather forecast was for light rain all day. However, it started very nicely, being pleasantly mild and with a fair amount of blue sky.
Above and below: the long, straight path through Thornden Wood that was probably once a drovers' track. This is the spot (below) that's been mentioned in the news recently as being where European bison will be introduced to help manage the woodland:
Paths through a tree tunnel, an orchard and farmland:
Nearing the marshes:
A pair of properties at St Nicholas at Wade - a thatched roof with thatched cat and mouse, and lots of unusual signs and notices next door:
The rain started just as we reached the sea wall - my wife putting on her waterproof jacket without stopping! We still had 10 miles to go...
(Left) Not yet minding the rain : (Right) Reculver Towers...
Beach huts at Herne Bay and my wife celebrating passing her previous best of 22.6 miles : Nearly home and we've done 26.2 miles!
Me on the promenade between Herne Bay and Whitstable. I've become accustomed to BBC weather forecasts being overly pessimistic and on the one day that the weather was much worse than forecast, I took nothing at all that was waterproof. We spent about 3 hours walking in non-stop rain and I've never finished a walk as thoroughly soaked as I did today!
But the weather didn't spoil a thing - it was a fantastic walk. We're toying with the idea of doing 50km next...