Coastwalk

Sittingbourne → Rainham

Distance: 16.2 miles
Ascent: 174 metres
Duration: 5 hours 15 minutes

Industry to marshland
« Faversham | Strood »

The first five miles out of Sittingbourne follow an industrial landscape. Water treatment works, a paper mill, a landfill site and a quarry. The sentence of chimneys, jetties, silos and sluices is punctuated by the great full-stop of the Kingsferry lifting Bridge, rising high above the Swale. Beyond the bridge the path stretches across Ferry and Chetney marshes, a change in landscape that is sudden, dramatic and welcome.

I hadn't expected such peacefulness in the marshland. Stopping to listen I could only pick out three or four sounds; all birdcalls save for the low hum of Sittingbourne on the horizon.

Three miles of road-walking took me across the map boundary into the village of Lower Hartfield where a church provided lunchtime shelter from the drizzle.

The rain continued for much of the rest of the day, a fact seemingly lost of the dog-walker near Horsham Lake who, with a peak cap and hands on hips commented that it was "a lovely day for walking about". I couldn't make out his words the first time and when he repeated himself he flapped his hands about to demonstrate 'walking about' though to me it looked like a fine doggy paddle.