North Downs Way

Cuxton → Hollingbourne

Distance: 16.92 miles
Ascent: 699 metres
Duration: 6 hours 33 minutes

Out of place
« Not walked | Not walked »

Seven years later, it's high time we finished walking the North Downs Way.

The first few miles were on tarmac, crossing the river on the huge Medway Viaduct alongside the roar of the M20 motorway and the whoosh of high-speed rail. We never quite escaped the noise of people moving faster than us, but the path soon returned to downland and before long we found ourselves dropping to the foot of the escarpment alongside the remains of a 6,000 year-old burial chamber.

Kit's Coty House looked completely out-of-place, the kind of thing you'd expect in west Wales, not here in the deep south-east of England.

Back on the downs we found ourselves caught in a thunderstorm before the walk was over, lightning striking the ground quite close by. The one positive result was that the thunder drowned out the otherwise incessent sound of traffic.