Once again I have had to use my detective skills to find the best (cheapest) way to Rochester via Gravesend, and have been able to undercut the ticket machine by over £10. It really shouldn’t be this difficult! The logistics for today also include a local bus at the end of the walk which has a rather unhelpful timetable. One bus is at 15:40, which is too much of a challenge to catch after a 30km walk, when I can’t start until 10:45. The next is 18:05, is a bit too late when it’s just getting dark. I was looking for things to use my time but it is a remote point on the north Kent Coast, with only a Londis shop and a chip shop. Its a 40 minute walk to the nearest pub! I then had the mad idea of starting later!! The journey today took me through St Pancras Station for the first time.

When I bought my ticket at St Pancras one of the reasons for the ticket complexity becomes clear. Rochester and the north kent coast are served by the “Javelin”, which is HS1 (High Speed 1). Obviously this costs more but takes 30 minutes to Gravesend, as opposed to over an hour on the standard (Thameslink) service. It uses the same tracks as the Eurostar. It was great speeding out of London seeing sights that previously I may have ignored. The Dartford Flood Barrage (see last weeks walk) now stood out like a sore thumb, and obviously the QEII bridge.

Just as last week, arriving in some sunshine puts the starting town in a whole different light, and I was already quite impressed with Gravesend. It looked even better than last week. I was most impressed to see electric buses being recharged by overhead gantries at bus stops, which presumably must result in more appropriately sized batteries for the routes. Another thing I had been alerted to during the previous week (when you have visisted somewhere you become more alert) was that Gravesend is the resting place of Pocahontas. Now I’ve heard of Pocahontas, but didn’t really know much (so an abridged history thanks to Wikipedia). She was a native american, the daughter of a chief of the Powhatan people. She was captured by the English and held for ransom, but converted to Christianity and married an English colonist. She was brought to England in 1616, by the sounds of it, as a bit of a sideshow to raise money. She was returning to America in 1617 and was taken ill when passing Gravesend. She was only around 21 or 22 years old when she died. It all seems like a sad story, but it was good to see a large statue of her marking this period of history.

I only had to walk about four kilometres to get out of Gravesend, and the sections along the river front were very interesting, including a noticeboard with details to the Gravesend Floating Bridge, crossing the Thames during the First World War. Reading up on it (I developed an interest in Bailey Bridges following a museum visit on Day 5 of my D-Day Beaches tour), it was to allow troops to be moved quickly from one side of the Thames to the other depending on where any invasion was anticipated. It was never used in anger, and sounds like a real pain as it needed to have sections removed to allow shipping through.

On the subject of shipping, there was a large Cruise Liner moored on the opposite side of the river in Tilbury. I mentioned, on my last walk, that the Gravesend Ferry had stopped in 2024. I would have thought the benefits of having cruise liner passengers visiting the town would make having a ferry a bit of a no-brainer! While there were some interesting sections walking out of town, the majority was through industrial areas. I’m going to be more positive on this walk and not dwell on litter and rubbish. Too be fair, outside of towns there was no litter and the quantity on the river foreshore were greatly reduced (but with a strangely high density of plastic garden chairs, and construction hard hats – maybe a container was lost overboard?). Anyway, no more mentions of litter. I was soon out of town and in the greenery of the Cliffe Marshes, walking along the flood defences. For over 25km of todays walk was on the flood defence, and I saw a total of three other people all day. It could be said that the walking was boring, but the isolation was excellent.

From looking at the map before walking, the only thing I passed was Cliffe Explosive Works. This is a whole series of isolated buildings spread over a huge area, one assumes that if one building “went up”, the others wouldn’t. There is very little information about this site on-line, other than it is one of the largest protected historic sites, and it operated from the late 1800’s through to 1920. It is certainly located in a really remote location.

There were a few other forts, and defensive positions along the route. I could sort of imaging the different timescales of each site. I’d be guessing, but there were Napoleonic type defences (same age as the Martello Towers on the south coast), more sophisticated forts from maybe WW1 and “Pillbox” defensive line from WW2. I should do some research to see if I am right. Travelling around gives you greater insight into many things!

Looming on the opposite shore for the whole day is the London Gateway Port. I did do some work on the drainage for this many years ago, but I can’t quite remember what for, possibly for extending the railway lines. Anyway it is huge. There was a steady stream (well about five all day) of large container ship coming in and out. I caught two Maersk ships passing each other. The incoming ship was from Algeciras (near Gibraltar) in Spain, and the outgoing ship was heading to Hamburg in Germany. There was definitely more on the incoming ship, which is absolute proof of our trade deficit. Also on the shipping front, I saw my old friend the Celandine plying its trade between Dagenham and Vlissingen. I’ve seen it on the previous two walking days and I think I’ll specifically look out for it on future walks.

The most striking thing about today’s walk was the splendid isolation, and the green countryside. After the previous three sections through very urban landscapes it was so nice. The path was often below the flood bank so you could walk oblivious to the river, and just enjoy the marshes, grazing sheep and particularly good looking and friendly ponies. At other times, the path was on the top of the bank, and the river gradually widened to feel like a coastline, with even the smell of the sea. Towards the end of the section, the marshes became farmland with early crops beginning to grow (although I have no idea what).

Of the three people I met on today’s walk, two of them were birdwatchers and there really was a lot of bird-life. With the river, and exposed mud flats at low tide on one side, and the marshes with flooded gravel pits on the other, there was lots of habitat. I am considering getting a bird book and some binoculars to make better use of my walk along the marshes on the north Kent coast. From my zero knowledge position, I did see gulls fighting off a bird of prey, a white heron, incredibly large groups of small sea birds feeding on the mud flats and two flying penguins!

The hours of isolation had to end, and it did at a huge caravan park at Allhallows. There were a surprising number of people out and about for such a remote area, so the caravan park must be doing good business even in the off season. It also must be said that everyone was most friendly, my “evening” to a walker coming the other way was always met with a much longer response, often remarking on the weather or if I was having a good day. Not sure what it means, but an interesting observation. Looking up the site, you can have a four day break in a six berth caravan for £49 which may explain its popularity.

I got to the bus stop with about 30 minutes to wait, it was just getting dark and chilly, so my hat and gloves came out. It had been a glorious day, and I’d walked in a jumper all day, except for brief section which took full force of the wind, needing jacket, hat and gloves. On the whole it was remarkable weather for early March. The bus arrived fashionably late, but not late enough for me to miss the Javelin train back to London and home on a very quiet train (but still early enough to catch the fish and chip shop on the way home).