Weather: fine, hot, still
Distance: 40.0 km ( 24.9 miles)
Total Distance:
2084.6 miles
A mammoth days walk for me though I did
not intend it to be. I planned to catch
the train back to Margate so I tried to park as close as possible to the
station. The fee for the station car
park was a lot even on a Sunday but fortunately a side street near by provided
me with what I wanted - a free place.
I
do like seaside town early in the morning and my impression of Margate was so
much better early on a Sunday morning when it is waking up, than on a busy
Saturday afternoon. The beaches were
being cleared of all the seaweed washed up yesterday by the high tide. That
looked a big job. Many of those out on
the promenades were jogging or riding bikes.
There was concrete promenade virtually all the way to Birclington and
then good paths on the whole to Herne Bay.
The cliffs started to disappear at about Plumbpudding Island - and even
if they did not its an excellent name for a place to put in a diary,
I needed my break at Herne Bay and
resolved to stop at the first cafe.
Surprisingly I had to go quite a way along the prom to get to it and it
turned out to be a council affair in a sort of theatre. Whitstable was more pleasant if a lot harder to
walk around. There was no promenade as
such and I had to cut into the town at one stage. Some very pleasant old houses had their
gardens face onto the beach.
It was
either stop here or press onto Faversham and as it was early and a nice day I
pressed on not really judging very well how far it was. The beach got harder to walk along and at
Seasalter I left it for a while and headed over the railway line to get to a
shop to stock up before I left civilisation all together. I enjoyed my Solero
Ice lolly while the proprietor inside watched the Eastenders compilation on
high volume.
I rejoined the coastal road and was
surprised how many cars were on it - without a pavement it was not a
particularly pleasant stretch. When the
road turned inland at Graveny Marshes I spent the rest of the day on sea
defence walls. This stretch was
surprisingly popular. I had expected it to be quiet by there were groups of
people out walking dogs, fishing even shooting.
Beyond Nagden Marshes I turned inland up the river bank towards
Faversham. What a long trek this was made worse by swarms of small flies especially around hawthorn bushes. I was
exhausted for this last three miles and hobbled into Faversham through the town
which looked very impressive and was clearing up after a market day and to the
station where I got a train back to Margate.
I spent the night at Canterbury
YHA. It was quieter than last time I stayed here - no
Gibraltan schoolchildren this time. I met another
Japanese lad - abroad for the first time and determined to attend as many pop
concerts as possible, a German girl studying the Science of music and Martin,a gardener from Peterlee Bible College who subsequently sent mew a
book of his poems.
I ate in a tandoori restaurant and had
a very palatable chicken Tika Marsala, phoned home picked up some milk and had
an early night.
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