Completely covering Kent

[sunnydale]

More nice photos Dave

[WhitstableDave]

It's been a while since my last update which I'll put down to the weather - we've had a lot of rain! I've still been walking as much as ever, and I like walking in rain, but I don't take many (if any) photos and I do like to illustrate my posts (mainly because I don't need to write as much).

For this weekend's walk with my wife I worked out a route to visit a tiny hamlet we'd not seen before. The hamlet is Nackington and it's just outside Canterbury on a road that goes nowhere else. As usual, I tried to use paths and bridleways that I'd not walked before and luckily they mostly turned out to be perfect.

We parked at a park and ride outside Canterbury on the Old Dover Road and headed south to reach a point that we'd been to on the Canterbury Outer Ring walk in the spring. Then we turned north towards Nackington and crossed farmland to Canterbury before doing some town walking along the Old Dover Road back to the car park. (We needed to keep the walk to a shortish 7 miles because we were going back to Canterbury later to buy a new car for my wife...  )



We crossed lots of open farmland, then a vast covered area of strawberries, followed by orchards:



Next was woodland where my wife took a nice photo with her new phone (Samsung S10) using a 'best shot' setting (centre) - plus a couple of less good shots!



My wife's 'best shot' photo looking south from the edge of the woods...



...and my poorer effort from nearby:



A frosty field before Nackington. This was the only bit of the walk where the path was non-existent. Crunchy soon turned to muddy!



Nackington was as nice as we could have hoped - a few big posh houses, some quaint cottages, a neat green and a small church:



An extremely pleasant outing! 

[Jac]

Delightful little hamlet. Did you go into the church? The tower looks oddly aligned to the knave.
The project is progressing well.

[WhitstableDave]

Delightful little hamlet. Did you go into the church? The tower looks oddly aligned to the knave.
The project is progressing well.

We did a lap of the churchyard but didn't go into the church. The church is very lopsided but I don't know why, other than that it's suffered a lot from subsidence since as far back as the C12th and there have been a great many alterations and additions over the centuries.

[richardh1905]

Been reading through this thread - there appear to be a lot of nice corners in Kent, a county that I have only ever passed through on my way over the Channel. Particularly like the woodland and orchards.

[Flanners]

What a great thread, some brilliant photos and some great walks! I am in T Wells and walk a lot in Kent/E Sussex; been out 3 times this week, chilly and as you're well aware horrendoulsy muddy. Keep up your efforts, few spots for you to fill over in W Kent! I did the TW Circular a couple of years ago and I was totally shattered at the end.

[Jac]

Been reading through this thread - there appear to be a lot of nice corners in Kent, a county that I have only ever passed through on my way over the Channel. Particularly like the woodland and orchards.

Wasn't it once called The Garden of England?

[WhitstableDave]

What a great thread, some brilliant photos and some great walks! I am in T Wells and walk a lot in Kent/E Sussex; been out 3 times this week, chilly and as you're well aware horrendoulsy muddy. Keep up your efforts, few spots for you to fill over in W Kent! I did the TW Circular a couple of years ago and I was totally shattered at the end.

Thank you, I really appreciate that. It's a long drive, so walks in the far west will have to wait for longer days - but I'm very aware that I've got to do more in the wonderful Tunbridge Wells area, including the rest of the TW Circular. 

[WhitstableDave]

Wasn't it once called The Garden of England?

It still is! 

[WhitstableDave]

My walk today was in the Kent Downs Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty between Ashford and Canterbury. I've walked in the area many times before, but there were lots of small villages and hamlets I hadn't yet visited, so I worked out a route to take me through as many of them as possible.

I parked outside the lovely village of Wye at a viewpoint near the Devil's Kneading Trough. The first 16 miles of my route were entirely along quiet lanes while the final couple of miles were off-road along the North Downs Way. The area is very hilly (at least, for this part of the world!) and the weather was perfect - icy cold with the sun very low in a clear blue sky.

I took lots of photos along the way, but I think this one sums up the area nicely:



This is the view of the Devil's Kneading Trough from the North Downs Way, although unfortunately I had to take the photo into the sun. These valleys were formed at the end of the last ice age by glacial action. (Kent is not flat!)



The route: An excellent walk through a beautiful landscape!

[WhitstableDave]

It's five weeks since I last updated this topic and I'd hate for anyone to think I've given up exploring Kent, so I must post something - no matter how unexciting! 

The problem is of course, that short winter days aren't conducive to driving long distances to do walks, so I stick mainly to familiar local routes.

Today though, an opportunity arose to do several miles of previously unwalked paths. My wife was driving to a meeting in Sittingbourne, so I went with her and walked home. The route was simple: alongside the A2 (London Road), alongside the A299 (Thanet Way) and alongside the A2990 (Old Thanet Way).

The novel part was that I'd not walked the first seven miles of the A2 between Sittingbourne and Faversham before! After Faversham I could have taken quiet, scenic routes, but I decided to make this a Major Road Walk. Well, why not?



A rare peaceful moment on the A2:



Path alongside the A299 dual carriageway:



The A2990 - nearly home!



The walk was 17.5 miles, it took just over 4 hours and, except for a short detour needed to cross the dual carriageway via a bridge, the whole walk was alongside mostly busy roads. But despite that, it was an enjoyable morning. I've driven that route dozens of times, but walking provides a completely new perspective - it's more 'real' than when whizzing past in an insulated box!

My photos aren't very exciting, but I took this much nicer one on my walk yesterday. I did a familiar 20+ mile loop between home and Reculver Towers - here they are from the eastern side...

[WhitstableDave]

I've walked 294 miles so far this month, but today's was the first walk where I've driven to the start and driven home afterwards. It really is the time of year for local walks!

Today though, I needed to go to the garden centre near Ramsgate and I also wanted to visit a store at Westwood. So I parked at the garden centre, took a less than direct route to Westwood, then did a circuit to visit Thanet's other main towns - including Margate and Broadstairs.

The Isle of Thanet (or just Thanet!) is a place of real contrasts. There are extremely posh areas, with some of the most expensive houses I've seen, not far from some of the most deprived areas I've seen (in the UK of course). There are farms that are surrounded by urban streets. There are wonderful sandy beaches and impressive chalk cliffs and tacky amusement arcades. There are lighthouses, forts and castles, and grotty industrial areas. I could go on!.. But despite all that (or perhaps because of it) it's a fascinating place to explore and my route was mostly new to me.

Where I parked is marked on the map with a green disc. The 'extension' near Westgate-on-Sea was added to ensure the walk was of a reasonable length.



The agriculture on Thanet isn't particularly diverse - the crops are mostly cabbages and cauliflower, especially at this time of year. Most of the walk was on pavements and good paths, but I crossed some muddy cabbage fields too (or perhaps they were cauliflower fields...).



Arriving at the North Kent coast near Westgate:



Margate: The Turner Contemporary art gallery is on the far left. The brown blocky building on the right is the entrance to Dreamland, Margate's popular amusement park. The huge sandy beach is quite amazing!



A smaller beach near Kingsgate, with a chalk arch in the centre of the photo:



At the top of the hill beyond the field of brassica is North Foreland lighthouse, the twin of South Foreland lighthouse that can be seen from the sea at Dover.



The walk was 16.6 miles and very satisfying because of the sheer variety of sights on offer. 

[sunnydale]

More nice photos Dave

[WhitstableDave]

We needed to take my wife's car to a garage in Canterbury this morning, so we did our weekend walk together from there. 

The garage is right at the eastern end of the city so I planned a short walk to Westbere Marshes, which form part of a large area of wetlands about 4 miles E-W by 1 mile N-S. Canterbury's river, the Great Stour, winds its way through the marshes and between ponds and lakes and is navigable as far as Fordwich, about 2 miles from the city centre. 



We took paths alongside a railway line for about 3 miles before detouring into Westbere Village then crossing the line and heading into the very wet wetlands. We reached the river and followed it to Fordwich, then made our way along roads back to the garage. It was a rather grey morning but we still took a few photos...

Westbere is a delightful little village with some beautiful old houses:



This photo is looking back to Westbere in the distance on the far side of the lake:



A lot of the path through the marshes was as soggy as this...



Drier land at last!



Picturesque Fordwich, England's smallest town. The river is beyond the grass - some boats can just be made out:



We are extremely lucky to have such an amazing variety of places to walk in our part of the 'Rest of England'. Within walking distance from home, there are coastal marshes, Ancient woodlands, beaches and cliffs, orchards and farms, idyllic villages, and wetland nature reserves - wonderful! 

[gunwharfman]

I really like your presentation of your walks, its vet clear and visual.