The B&B was deadly quiet in the
morning and so apathetic did the lady look the one time I met her the previous
evening and disgruntled that I wanted breakfast at 8.o’clock, I thought she had
not bothered to get up. I thought about
leaving just £10 and just going and made one check of the back room to find she
was there and frying. The breakfast
turned out to be OK though was eaten in stony silence. Hospitable is not something I would have
called this place.
I parked on rough ground at Swale down
an embankment from the road and set off across the marshes on the
embankments. It was a lovely morning and
there was a lot of birdlife around. The
only difficult part of the path went past a farm near Chetney Hill where the
cows had all but obliterated the path.
At
Rasberry Hill I joined the road all the way to Lower Halstow past
orchards. I came on a rough looking
group of men, boys and dogs near a beat up transit van who were busy attacking earth mounds. They
made it clear by speaking in loud voices to each other that they were after
rabbits for food, however this may have been to stop me thinking they were
after badgers. Do badgers live on
roadsides - I think not, it probably was rabbits after all.
At Lowe Halstow, a path cuts through in
front of the old church and heads off down the estuary. There were noises from a number of boats
moored up on the mud banks - people using them for housing. At Ham Green I cut inland past a garden
centre onto a minor road for a circuit of this little peninsular. It was then time to walk through some
orchards. I stopped near the village of
Upchurch to have a can and a bar of chocolate before getting to Otterhan Quay .
The path went down towards an industrial estate and then onto another
peninsular though this path was not on the map it was very evident on the
ground. Access to the tip of the
peninsular itself was blocked by a sewage treatment plant - thanks Southern
Water!
At Bloors Wharf a group of twichers
were looking very agitated - a rare sighting was imminent. The following two or three miles was along a
reasonable path proving popular with dog walkers and people out for the
day. I went as far as I could but eventually had to cut inland onto the main road and head into Chatham. A large part of this was seemingly barracks
and military dockyards with no access from the direction I was walking. I think I missed out on seeing the best part
of the dockyard because it was a no through road. I passed the military museum and south
towards Rochester on the busy main road. I stopped for the day at Rochester train
station and caught I think three trains back to Swale with quite a wait at
Sittingbourne. Swale was a request stop
I am glad I found out in advance and made sure the driver knew I wanted to stop
there! I collected the car and drove
back to Coventry.
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