Jane’s Walk 2025 – Day 4
We leave behind the towns of Rochester, Gillingham and Chatham, towns that appear now to run into each other. We are back on the shoreline of the Medway and have to wait in the car for 1/2 hr as it pelts down with rain, as had been forecast for 9am! When the rain stops, we make good progress as the Saxon Shore Way is well-maintained here. It’s obviously a dog walker’s paradise, and we pass many, including one lady with eight dogs on leads, all of different sizes.
We have noted over the past 4 days that the Kent blackberries are bigger and sweeter than those in Oxfordshire. I then realise that Kent is known as the ‘Garden of England’ and grows more fruit than in any other county, so this would make sense. For what it’s worth, the crab apples are redder and shinier than I have ever seen before, as are the rose hips, sloes, blackthorn berries and on one path today, we were squashing hundreds of little yellow plums under our feet, which were growing in the hedgerow. They tasted very sweet, so they were definitely not damsons! We are now very much in apple orchard country. It is fascinating that the apples and some pears are no longer grown on standard trees but tied to long poles. Rather like cordons but upwards. They are laden with apples, and I wonder if it is easier to pick them this way. The last time we walked through Kent, when we walked from York to Canterbury in 2012, the apple orchards were standard trees. I ask a farmer if it is a good harvest this year. He said he had not quite started picking them, but he was hopeful. They looked great!
The Medway here is a mixture of creeks and islands, and it meanders all over the place, so the path consequently has to do the same, so although we walk our eight miles, we have not travelled very far all day! Another downpour happens as we stop for lunch. It was a toss-up between a picnic in the churchyard of Upchurch village or the pub. The pub won! We have been incredibly lucky with the timing of the downpours, both today and yesterday.
The afternoon walk is very pretty through farmland and orchards. We appreciated the silence as for the first time we have left behind the noise of traffic which has been with us since we started. We did have one rather worrying incident when the path ran alongside a horse establishment. The owner had a very large aggressive Alsatian who kept throwing itself at the fence we were behind. The owner assured us it could not get over but we weren’t wholly convinced!
Back to the creek that we had been on the other side of this morning. We are sad that we have seen this large expanse of water at low tide with all the boats sitting on seaweed and mud. We finish the day at Lower Halstow, passing as we walk round the harbour of the village three beautifully restored Thames barges, with their dark red sails. These were the cargo boats of the past that plied up and down the river bringing goods into London.
