Distance: 40 km ( 24.9 miles)
Total Distance: 2014.7 miles
I believe this was the longest days
walk I had done to date, not made any easier by a couple of misunderstandings
concerning buses at the end.
I parked in a car park belonging to
some flats just outside Rye. The first section of the walk was around the
outskirts of Rye. I probably did not see
the best bits taking this route but it looked a good place to revisit at some
stage. Once over the bridge I went along
the banks of the Rother, mainly walking on sea defences etc.
This side of the river was a lot more picturesque. There was no footpath marked at times but it
was still all apparently accessible.
Once off the dunes it was onto Camber
sands, which was not very busy to say the least. I did not see much of Camber at all, the path
did not go up until after the village.
After a trek along the road it was into Lydd Firing Ranges - what a
desolate area that was. Rather than taking the shingle front I took a roadway
instead which eventually petered out and seemed to leave me in the middle of a
danger area. I quickly made my escape
towards the sea and from then on along
the shingle all the way to Dungeness Power Station. This shingle front seemed to go on for ever
and it was difficult and painful walking.
The first sign of life was sea anglers fishing off the shingle near the
power station - not the sea anglers ever show any signs of life - they choose
to ignore you if they possible can.
I stopped in the station cafe at
Dungeness surrounded by a nuclear power station, a couple of lighthouses a
miniature railway and a collection of shacks where people had for some reason
chosen to live amongst the desolation.
The shingle bank by the sea northwards looked private so I kept to the
road which was much easier walking. The
housing gradually became more civilised, and the bungalows went on for mile
after mile.
I got to St Mary’s Bay in
reasonable shape considering the distance I had come already. I was my last day of this trip so after
finding out from an elderly couple waiting at a bus stop that the next bus
going in the direction I wanted was not for another hour or so I decided to run myself into the ground and head towards Hythe or at least as far as I could get
before the bus came. The path was on the
sea wall as far as Hythe Ranges. There
was no need for red flags, I could hear the sound of rifle fire from far
away. I headed inland and eventually
came to a bus stop in an exhausted state near Palmarsh on the outside of Hythe.
The bus eventually came but the diver
said he only went as far as New Romney on a Sunday and not to Rye. Now why I did not get on and go to New Romney
I’m not quite sure - I should have.
Instead I declined his offer and started hitching. It was an awful place
to hitch and I had to walk all the way back to
Dymchurch to get a place anywhere near decent. I hitched on the way out of the village and a
man who was just pulling out stopped and gave me a life as far as Brenzett
roundabout, near a Little Chef.
It was
starting to get dark and those cars that were coming off at my exit on the
roundabout were travelling fast. However, after not too long a wait a man drove
out of the Little Chef car park and stopped for me and asked where I was
going. Rye seemed OK with him so I
jumped in. On inquiring he told me he
was due to go in the other direction until he saw me hitching. Things got even stranger when he told me how
careful one had to be hitching, people getting raped and wrongly accused. The one good thing was that he was driving so
slowly I could have jumped out if I had wanted to anyway. I was glad to get back to the car and drive
home.
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