Dover Durness Day 1: Dover to Horndon on the Hill

Distance today        71 miles in 5hrs 40mins
Height Climbed       3586 feet burning 2450Kcal

Distance so Far       71 Miles  in  5hrs 40mins
Height Climbed      3586 Feet Burning 2450 Kcal

After over 35 years of thinking about this particular trip I have finally started. I suspect when I was younger it would've been self supported with a tent and all that, but time moves on and I am not so keen. The dog would not be keen either.

So, at 10.00 I pedaled out of the National Trust Car Park on the start of the first day. Well that was the plan. The car park was thick gravel and I was in the small cog at the back. I got off and walked. Then restarted down the slope and stopped again to take a photo of Dover harbour, then again another view of the harbour, then the sign to the car park as I left, and finally Dover Castle. Pictures taken I started properly.

The bike felt heavy and slow even down hill. This was going to be hard. The climb out of Dover wasn't bad, and I was quickly on the downs above and on the back road to Canterbury.

Canterbury seems to lack cycle paths on the south side, of at leas

t those I could find, so it was a quick play with the traffic then into the city center and onto the traffic free pedestrian and cycle zone. Nobody had told the pedestrians this, and they conspired to bring me to a slow walking pace over the cobbles. The babies and small children in prams and buggy's shock and they passed over the cobbles. I know how you feel mate.

Cycle paths found I left the city and climbed up to next to the A2. Fun it is, riding on a narrow cycle path the towards the oncoming lorries. Turning north running parralle to the A2 I ran through Faversham, Sittingbourne and onto Gillingham. Sittingbourne was at a standstill traffic wise. Denise took way longer to catch me and get ahead again. I cycled up back roads and through the park. 

Gillingham and Chatham were negotiated on the cycle paths, and sometime footpaths when I lost the

cycle path. I wasn't looking forward to the heavy traffic here, but they can go as fast as they like when I am in my very own lane. This is all well and good until they decide to dig them up: cars get diversion signs, I get to do loops in Rochester looking to see if an alternative was provided.

A short climb again, down small lanes to a large trading estate.The road ends and there is a small hole in the fence with a cycleway sign. Past the car re-cyclers and it is onto the Medway Canal towpath. I can't really see the canal. What I can see is clean, but it hasn't seen a boat in years. Miles of mixed gravel in a striaght line with the canel by my side. I know Gravesend is near, but it doesn't wan to come. 

Then it does. When I last visited I thought it lived up to its name. Perhaps its the sun shine, but this time its not so bad (as last time), I still wouldn't choose to go back.

I could now take the ferry. It takes people and their bikes to Tilbury and is the lowest point on the river where you can cross. Instead I meet Denise. She is not keen on

driving on the M25 and over or under the river to meet me. So bike on car and I drive to Tilbury. There is traffic everywhere. We take an hour and a half to do 20 miles. Then it is back on the bike.

I try to carefully research the route. I check that a line which says is a cycle path is something that can actually be ridden. Sustrans have a nasty habit of choosing a cheeky sandy path, or ploughed field and taking unsuspecting cyclists down it. The path by the river is not a sustrans

route. It starts well. Then I have to carry my bike over a wall into the river. A sign warns that it can be under water at high tide. I'm ok the tide is going out. The path is good, right up next to the flood wall on concrete. There are another three sets of steps at a pier, then more concrete. Finally the path rises onto the top of the wall and I am safe. A few roads and into the nights accommodation car park. No Denise.  A quick ride up the road finds her outside the other pub waiting for me.