This leg sees me passing the 500 mile (800 km) mark of the coast path. Its taken 31 days of walking, which is slightly more distance than the (my) Camino by 12 miles, but that only took 27 days (or 25 days of actual walking). I’m pretty sure the reduced daily distance is due to the complexities of travelling to the start, and back from the finish – rather than having a albergue wherever you stop. To demonstrate, I think today is my most complex yet. I was planning on staying overnight on this stage, but finding the train fare was only £18.90 and the Easter holidays pushed up the otherwise very cheap accommodation. I caught the 9:07 train, and after five* trains I started walking at 12:45, it will be longer going home as there is a bus ride to add to the pain. (* It was nearly six trains, as there had been disruption and we were all de-trained at Rochester to join a faster service, which didn’t appear so we rejoined the original train). I missed my connection at Sittingbourne, which gave me the opportunity to seek out lunch. I found Boyce’s Bakers – “Kent’s best bakers”, a bold claim. I bought my traditional lunch of a Cornish Pasty (and a slice of Bread Pudding). It seems this is the food of the coast path, as opposed to the Coffee and Walnut Cake which seemed to be the food of my Camino walk. The only other thing to add about the journey was that the weather was scorching (well for the UK in April) and the trains were full of families heading to the coast or parks, or really just anywhere to get out of the city. So when I got to Sheerness, it was a much more bustling place than when I left it on a slightly damp chilly evening only a week ago.

I left the station and retraced my steps to the bridge, and headed out along a grassy path out to the sea defences. There was a good view back towards the actual Port of Sheerness, and Southend was just about visible across the Estuary. It is feeling more like the coast proper than the Thames Estuary. That feeling was helped by dozens of holiday makers on the beach, and some kids were swimming and messing around in the water. I’m sure it must be freezing!

There wasn’t much of a view of Sheerness as the sea wall is so high. I was pretty much looking across at roof level, although I expect the view back would be worse. Sheerness gradually blended into Minster on Sea, a much nicer resort mainly because it is higher and not behind a sea wall. There were lots of families and “promenaders” on the prom, but very little commercial activity. With just the occasional tea van, or kiosk, it had a really nice feel in the exceptionally warm and sunny April day. It was the perfect location to test the Cornish Pasty. It wasn’t bad, but I think the one(s) I had from the bakery in Rochester may just have the edge. I’ll do some further testing on my next walk. I ate the Bread Pudding on the trains home, it was superb and almost lasted for the whole journey.

After Minster, the path kicked up into some hills and deviated away from the coast. I think this is due to two reasons, firstly there are unstable cliffs and secondly there are lots of caravan parks which block any public access. The National Trail website says that this section is not completed yet and maybe they are trying to establish a route along the cliffs.

I just headed off on small roads and paths and tried to keep as close to the coast as reasonable. I had a route mapped out, and was walking along a road (Warden Road) towards a footpath, when I saw a cycling sign for the “Warden Road Cycle Bypass”. It was pointing through a caravan site, and was closer to the coast than my planned route, so I took it. If I guessed its route on the map, it took me closer to the coast and could link up to another bridleway that seemed to go to the cliff top where it petered out, but there was another path nearby that could be a continuation. When I was planning my walk I discounted this route as there was a risk it wasn’t connected, this sign lifted the risk, or so I thought. Initially all was good, on a walk between caravan parks with some signage, but the signs suddenly stopped. I think, in fact, the “bypass” only saved about 300 metres of road cycling, while my imaginary route was about two kilometres. My route led to a clearly private caravan park, but I felt sure if I walked around the entry barrier, I could get out at the far end. I was a bit surprised to see an electric gate completely blocking my way with no route around. I looked for a button to open, and was just about to give in and retrace my steps, when a transit van appeared. Brilliant, I just thought I’d tailgate it out of the site. Actually, the guy (a gardener?) had seen me and drove over to trigger the vehicle sensors on the gate – a good result. I headed down the next path, only to find a sign warning about cliff falls. A quick google seemed to suggest it was fenced off, rather an advisory sign, so not wanting to risk a three kilometre abortive walk, I got back on the road. My impromptu route planning had been a bit of a disaster, but probably more interesting than walking across a huge field of rapeseed.

All the fields around here are full of bright yellow rapeseed. It is pretty spectacular, unless, I suspect you suffer from hay-fever. As I walked past the field that I had planned to walk across, a tractor was spraying the whole field so maybe I escaped being chemically blasted!

The road gradaully petered out into rough gravel track as it dropped back down to sea level at Leysdown-on-sea. Leysdown has the most holiday feel, with families all over the beach, a small street of amusement arcades. It had a really nice feel, and I imagine hasn’t changed very much over the years. I think I was lucky to visit on a sunny say during the school holidays, rather than a wet week day.

It had only been a short day, and I planned to take the bus back to Sheerness from here. This is because it is the last place with a bus stop at the eastern end of the island. Even though I’d only walked 17 km, the next possible stop is over 25 km away at Swale station, after walking through the remote marshes on the south of the island. There was one other possible bus stop at one of the prisons, which I could reach from the south after another 10 km, but only two buses stop at each day. So I couldn’t get the logistics to work. But…. I was able to catch the 4:20 bus at Leysdown which did divert down through the prisons (there are three prisons on Sheppey). It was quite an experience as the bus enters the prison site and drives past all three prisons to the staff car park.

As we entered the site, two little girls started shouting “daddy is in there”, and were corrected by their mother that he was in the prison further down the road. A conversation then started at the back of the bus, that the “mother” was going to visit him tomorrow, and he would be out soon. Another women said that her ex was “doing a 10 stretch at a prison up north” and a man (who was on the bus because he was banned for driving) said his brother has done two years in one of the Sheppey prisons. All very strange conversations to overhear. The women concluded that their partners had opted for the easy life, getting three meals a day (but didn’t sound like they got much time out of their cells), while they were outside struggling to bring up their children with no support and not much money. There was a real ring of truth to this. Even while eavesdropping, I was still using my new bird watching skills, I did notice an Oystercatcher, clearly trained for slipping into the prison un-noticed.

The journey home wasn’t too bad, but was just under 4 hours (considering the bus to Sheerness took one hour!) but I’m looking forward to getting back onto the mainline train service. Deviating off onto these islands and headlands (Isle of Grain & Isle of Sheppey) take so long to get to. I’m hoping I can get back to Sittingbourne (and the mainland) in one big push. I think the rest of Kent has a pretty straight coast but I’m only half way around with, maybe, another eight days walking required. Its a really big county!