The South East Coast: Week in Review

I remember being told by a friend at work that you can't have an adventure without a bit of discomfort.   He had organised a few days boating on the Norfolk broads for a group of us with our partners.  We were told to bring sleeping bags, but he didn't tell us that we were sleeping in open dinghies, tying the sail over our heads as a shelter.

This week was a good illustration of that.  There weren't the normal problems of huge hills or wall-to-wall rain, but a headwind along an exposed coast is a nasty thing, and it was unseasonably cold for May.   And then I got poorly.   I felt pathetic, being unable to cycle forty miles on a flat sea wall.   I suppose it made for a good dramatic finish to my trip, but I would rather have done without it.  This is the way it ends, not with a bang, but with a sniffle.

 Perhaps I have just been lucky in previous years.   I have had a lot of good fortune in my trip on many occasions, so I guess it evens out.

Riding along the south coast and round Kent has been different from the rest of the trip.  It's more familiar territory for me, so there wasn't quite that excitement of riding into the unknown.   It's also probably better known to most people who read the blogs, so it was more difficult to find novel things to write about.  As it turned out, I did discover a lot of nice places that were new to me, and especially the towns of Thanet were a revelation.

And what about finishing the whole journey around Britain?   I didn't really attach much importance to it, because my motivation was never about completing the trip.   It was always about discovering somewhere new, converting a line drawn on the map into an exploration with some stories and photos to remember it by.  Yet when I arrived at Tower Bridge, I admit I shed a few unexpected tears.   Maybe it was simply because I was so tired, but maybe something more.    Anyway, I've done it.   Had loads of fun, met lots of interesting people, and learned a lot about touring, camping, choosing cafes and coping with the sorts of problems that pop up when you're travelling.

What next?  

Perhaps I will ride along all the rivers in Britain?  Or maybe round the coast of Europe?

No.  Seriously.   I haven't really thought much about this.   Without revealing too much personal information, I am now 13 years older than I was when I started in 2013, so I won't be trying to go round Britain again.   

I'm not sure there has to be a "what next".  I'm not sure I want to embark on another long-term challenge, but I still enjoy exploring, so perhaps it will be random shorter trips?

There is still one bit of the coast left to do: Guernsey, where we tried to visit last year but were thwarted when our ferry was cancelled due to a storm.   I might go and visit Guernsey again sometime, as a sort of appendix.

Thank you once again for taking an interest, offering a supportive comment, and sort of being there with me.   You might be able to tell from my recent posts that it meant a lot to me, and the enjoyment of visiting new places was increased by sharing it with you.  It's been a source of great pleasure, pain, excitement, and fun.  Thank you for being part of it.

Maps and mileages

Here's a pictorial view of my route around the coast.  There were only five significant hills:  one just before Newhaven, Beachy head, and the hills out of Hastings, Folkestone and Dover.   As you can see from the statistics below,  the daily distances were nothing spectacular, especially for a fairly flat route, but in my defence I would just mention that there was quite a bit of off-road, and a lot of headwinds.

Day 1: Hove-Normans Bay

Day 1 elevation

Day 2: Normans Bay-New Romney

Day 2 elevation

Day 3: New Romney-Pegwell (Ramsgate)

Day 3 elevation

Day 4: Pegwell-Faversham

Day 4 elevation

Day 5: Faversham-Minster (Sheerness)

Day 5 elevation

Day 6: Minster-Gravesend

Day 6 elevation

Day 7: Gravesend-home

Day 7 elevation

Mileages

Modest mileages and modest hills, with very modest average speeds.  The top ten hilly days for the whole coastal trip were not affected in the least by this week's riding.

Last leg(s)

I slept quite well apart from being wracked by bouts of coughing every so often.  When I woke, I realised how much the Lem-Sip had helped me yesterday (it contains paracetamol).   I had a fluey headache and my wrists hurt from all the off-road.  But my legs seemed OK.

Last day today.  I imagine it will be a bit like the final stage of the Tour de France, where the result is hardly in doubt, and the exhausted riders sip champagne while gently riding into Paris - except, well, too many differences to list.

On paper, this week's ride looked fairly easy, with just a few noticeable hills.  It was anything but.  At Faversham,  when I'd really struggled against the wind to ride an unimpressive distance round Thanet and up the estuary, it occurred to me that I could easily get a train home and come back in better weather.  About that time, I got an email from my hero and long-time cycling friend, Mark G.  He said, more or less, I've looked at the map and I can see you're going to finish it.  Congratulations.

I was puzzled.  It seemed a bit premature.   I couldn't see that I was going to finish it.  But Mark's faith, and all of your support, dear readers, has kept me going on this last stage.  Also the thought of having to tell you about giving up.

There's a children's cartoon film, The Little Engine That Could, which tells the story of a little steam engine which has to pull a heavy train across the mountains in a terrible storm, and I feel a bit like that little engine.  I can do it!

Anyway, back to the job in hand.  Which started with breakfast.  No champagne, but a Wetherspoons Small Breakfast for £2.99, with unlimited coffee, £1.33.   And porridge.

I like Gravesend.  In some ways it's the outer border of London.  Back in the day, ships had to moor at Gravesend while they cleared customs, picked up a pilot and waited for the tide and a berth in the London docks.   I've heard it said that the name is because it marks the end of the graves from the Black Death in London in the 1500s.  But it's time to up anchors and sail(?) upriver.

NCN 1 goes inland to Bluewater here but I stuck more closely to the coast.  It was interesting because it was so varied.  Lots of old industrial buildings, and several smart new housing developments - so new that although my route went through them, they were still building them.   A few diversions were needed.  And then there were the cliffs.  Who knew about the white cliffs of Gravesend?  They're about three storeys high, and my route went up and down them willy-nilly.

In the shape of a giant toilet roll

There were little oases of quaint old villages, like Greenhithe, and there was Ebbsfleet, on the Eurostar as a redevelopment initiative and subsequently dumped by Eurostar.

Greenhithe

I crested a small hill and was surprised to see the towers of the City in the distance.  And the Dartford crossing (QE2 bridge) quite near.  Dartford was only three miles.  It was a special moment - I still remember riding under the Dartford crossing on my first day in 2013.  I passed near Dartford Station, and then headed off towards Erith.  There are two routes, the horrid main road (with cycleway) or along Crayford Creek on a rough track.  I chose the latter, which was lovely - back out in the countryside again  for several miles, but required careful concentration. 

Crayford Creek 

I was pleased to get to Erith, where there's a Morrisons, but not so pleased to find that their cafe had closed.  There wasn't a good alternative, so I carried on up the Thames, for quite a long way as it turned out.

For several miles the river is lined by warehouses, either importing things that London needs, like flour, paper, gravel, sand and so on, or just for retail distribution- Lidl, Sainsbury, Tesco and Amazon had mega warehouses, well connected for the M25.  Then there's the Crossness waste & sewage treatment centre, a vast incinerator and the old Victorian sewage pumping station.  The river is protected by levees or flood walls, so I was sometimes raised up with great views and sometimes behind a concrete wall.  There was a fresh headwind - still - but I was able to make OK progress.

Erith

Crossness

London in the distance 

The surroundings gradually became more dominated by fairly new housing as I neared Greenwich.  It was not until Woolwich Arsenal when I found a lovely cafe for 11s which turned into lunch.  By now the City was often in sight in different places as the river looped around.  From Woolwich I passed familiar sights around Greenwich and less familiar places in Rotherhithe, by sticking more closely to the river bank than usual.   Here I found a little farm with cafe right on the river bank - a beautiful local place to sit and rest.

Woolwich Arsenal 

? Near the Millenium Dome

Old and new

Farm cafe by the river

At last, Tower Bridge, my official start and end point, was coming close.   I went down to the riverbank for an obligatory finisher's photo, and I was delighted to see that they had raised the bridge in my honour!   A sailing ship took advantage of my timing to go under the bridge too.   That meant there was a queue to get across the bridge, but cyclists are lucky and I managed to skip most of the queue.   My trip around the coast is complete!

Getting home wasn't so much fun.  There was a far right Christian demonstration in parliament square (more far right than Christian from what I saw).   Lots of people.   The police said I could go through, which took some time, but the police at the other end said I couldn't exit along the embankment, so I had to push my way back and reroute across Westminster bridge.   Then at Battersea, I had a sinking feeling and my front tyre was, very unreasonably, flat.   And finally at Twickenham I ran into a flood of rugby crowds just yards from home when my energy was at a very low ebb after pushing against the wind all day.

Demonstration

Glad to be home.   Not so glad that the whole adventure is over.  I will have to think of another excuse to go and explore new places.

I'll write a bit more when I've unpacked and had chance to reflect.   And I'll post some maps and statistics, if you're interested, in the next few days.

How far can I get in an afternoon?

I had a problem.  The last campsite between Chatham and London was at Grain, on the tip of the isle of Grain, leaving 70+ miles to do the following day, or maybe two days.  I wasn't confident in the wind or my legs to go further today.  In the end, the decision was taken for me, as I rang the camp site but they never got back to me.  I decided to see how far I could get.

There's a nice, new riverside cycle path from Chatham to Rochester and over the Medway bridge.  Nice views of the river but you miss the town of Rochester, which is lovely and historic.  Just after Rochester I felt the need to get supplies for a possibly long afternoon, so I found a bakers in Hoo and following my instincts, bought a doughnut, a cookie and a bottle of Lucozade, all sinfully sweet, to power my legs.  It worked.

On the other side it became rather hilly as I rode back eastwards almost to Sheerness, but on the Isle of Grain, which is not an island.  As I got nearer to Grain, at the point of the not-island, it was flatter and more sparsely populated.  Grain itself has oil terminals and liquid natural gas terminals, so it's got a lot going on.  Also a power station I think.  The village of Grain itself is quite nice with great views of Sheerness and its docks, and also north across the Thames to Southend.  The wind seemed to have moderated and was blowing from the north, so it wasn't really a problem after lunch.

Grain (with actual grain in foreground)

Oil & gas terminals

Grain seaside, looking across to Southend

Apologies for the grainy photos... Grain ticked off, I turned back east, on easy roads, ticking off the miles and swigging Lucozade every five miles.  The countryside was initially nice but nothing worth stopping for pictures.   When I got to Cooling it became very pretty.  There's an old castle there - if I lived there I would call it Cooling Towers.  Ha ha - I bet nobody else has ever thought of that.  By now I'd decided to aim for Gravesend, and the last seven or so miles were alongside a disused canal, very flat and scenic.  Strangely,  none of this ride was alongside the river(s).  And it didn't rain!

Cooling Towers

Cooling Towers - west wing

Tilbury docks, across the Thames 

Church at Cliffe

Random house

Canal

It went on for miles!

Finally, I arrived in Gravesend, and celebrated with a rehydration stop before booking into the Premier Inn for a well earned shower and, I hope, sleep.  It will be nice not to have to wear my beanie hat to keep warm, as it always makes me look like a scarecrow the next day.

Gravesend

Unless I ride into the river, or my bike (or I) fall apart, its the last day tomorrow! 

Sheerness to Chatham

I suddenly awoke in the night, seriously overheating, having put on every item of warm clothing.   Maybe it was my cold out-heating the cold of the night, but I had to quickly remove a few layers and unzip a few more.   Gradually I returned to a snotty form of normal (sorry, too much information), but I couldn't get back to sleep.  I had questions. 

For a start, why is it that when one nostril is completely blocked, you can usually breathe through the other one?  Are colds always left-handed or right handed - two different types of virus that affect different nostrils?  Perhaps it's necessary for survival, so you can eat with your mouth shut.

And what would happen if you were unfortunate enough to get both types at the same time, and you were having tea with the King or Queen with both nostrils fully blocked?  How would you eat?  What is the etiquette?  i must consult Debrett's when I return home.  I feel sure King Charles would be very understanding, but I'm not sure about Queen Elizabeth, for example.  There's so much I don't know.

Also, I wondered about those people at the private hamlet at Shellness.  What was their life like?  I thought I saw an electricity cable going down the track to them, but I guess they had no gas, no piped water.  Living adjacent to a swamp, they could produce their own water.  What about other services?  Rubbish? Sewage? Did they have Internet?  Did they have jobs, pay council tax, have kids in education?  Perhaps I will investigate when I get home, or ask the BBC to do a fly on the wall series..

And another thing.  I'm trying to get my head round the whole point of the isle of Sheppey.  Yes, it's a quiet out-of-the-way island on the doorstep of Kent, but Kent's Holiday Island?  Really?  Apart from Leysdown-on-Sea, which, let's face it, is hardly Las Vegas, there's a nice area of marshy grassland to the south, and some private housing and several holiday parks to the north, with very little public access to the sea.  What do people actually do when they come on holiday here?  And why those massive roads connecting it to the mainland?  I have high expectations of the west side of  the island.

Somewhere nearby, a cockerel crowed, about twenty times.  It was 3.26 am, and still very dark.   A few minutes later, it was 6.30am,  all the birds were singing, the sun was up and it was 13 degrees inside the tent.  It only ever went down to 7 degrees after all.

I'd been unable to find a nearby place to eat last night (in Kent's Holiday Island, the nearest place was four miles away), so I ordered a pizza to be delivered, and ate it in the washing-up area, which didn't really have the suave ambience of last night's meal, but it did the trick at roughly the same price.  (I'm sure I was undercharged last night in Faversham, but I queried it and they said it was fine.)

This morning I continued along the north of the island, heading towards Sheerness-on-Sea.  Inexplicably, the roads along the north of the island are unpaved and in a terrible state.  Most of the houses are perfectly nice with well tended gardens, but it would be an adventure to drive to your house.

Roads on the north of the Isle of Sheppey 

Sheerness itself is on the north-west corner of the island, opposite Southend-on-Sea.  It has an OK esplanade with a cyclable sea wall for a mile or two, and a bit of a green area for dog walkers and so on.  Turning into the town for breakfast was a disappointment for the capital of Sheppey.  I did find a cafe with a giant plate of beans on toast, but once again I couldn't see the tourist attractions. 

Sheerness's award winning beach

Award-winning beans on toast
(Full size mug and cutlery for scale)

On the east of Sheppey, there's a sizeable port, so perhaps that's where all the traffic is going.

There was a pretty little village, Queenborough,  a few miles further on, but it only took two minutes to see the sights.  Then I was heading for the giant bridges over The Swale again, and off the island. 

Queenborough creek

Back on mainland Kent life went on much as before.  Quiet lanes, orchards everywhere, mostly sheltered from the wind by tall hedges.  I wiggled around near the coast, and eventually found a path that was actually on the coast.  Pretty but windy.  I also realised that I was now riding along the River Medway.  On the other side is the Isle of Grain, where I hoped to go that afternoon. 

Along the river bank

You are here

The route took me all the way to Gillingham,  which merged into Chatham, and a detour onto St Mary's Island, full of nice new houses.   I was worn out again and found respite in a Chatham Wetherspoons (there are several) before cycling the last mile into Rochester and crossing the Medway.  Strangely, I couldn't face a Wetherspoons meal after a giant pizza last night and giant beans on toast for breakfast, so I had a dessert instead, which seemed to hit the spot.

St Mary's Island

View across the Medway

Chatham