Day 33 – Saturday 3 February 2001 - Erith to Greenhithe

11 miles walked today

423 miles walked in total (average 12.81)

I left Portsmouth at 6.30 am and got to Sheila and Alan’s in Coulsdon at eight o’clock.  While I was waiting for Alan to get ready, I looked at all of Sheila’s recent photographs, had breakfast and read War and Peace from cover to cover.  We finally left the house at 9.30 am and were ready to walk in Erith at 10.15 am.

The weather was very mild and sunny, but with big black clouds following us for the whole day.

We walked for a short while along the side of the Thames, before finding ourselves – wrongly – in the middle of an industrial estate the wrong side of the River Darent.  It didn’t take long to correct this mistake and we were soon striding out in the right direction.  As soon as we crossed the Darent, we were on footpaths all the way, using the Darent Valley Path.

The path wound around on a ridge with marshes on one side and the River Darent on the other.  Halfway out to the Thames, we met a farmer who was watching over one of his cows who had fallen down the ridge and was now laying, shivering and exhausted, at the bottom.  We talked with him until his pal came round in the JCB with the bucket on, to try and get her back on to the marsh side.  He told us that the ridges were built to protect the marshes from being flooded from the Thames, but that they’d been flooded anyway in the storms of 1953.  It was then that the flood barrier was built to protect the River Darent too.

Alan, for some reason, decided to introduce us to the farmer and explained about my walk and that I’d started in Norfolk, to which the farmer, laughing, said “not this morning surely!”.

We left him and his mate to rescue the cow and walked along to the flood barrier, where we sat and ate our lunch.  Alan’s bag is a little like Mary Poppins’ and he soon produced polythene for us to sit on, binoculars to look across the Thames with and yoghurts (with spoons) to supplement the rolls I’d made.  You’d never know he was a boy scout, would you?

The paths followed the Thames all the way to Greenhithe and we were soon under the Queen Elizabeth Bridge again.  Bridges are fantastic!  A little way past the bridge, we found a white plastic garden chair in the middle of the path which provided us with plenty of photo opportunities.  Unfortunately, today was the day my camera finally gave up the ghost and died.  I’d been expecting it for about six months, so wasn’t really surprised.  Alan kindly lent me his camera from this point and said I could have the pictures he’d taken so far.  However, he also told me that he had terrible camera shake and wasn’t sure the photos would come out anyway.  Ho hum!

At Greenhithe, we walked practically straight from the footpath into the train station, with a short stretch past Asda.  We were about ready to call it a day anyway so leapt on the first train back to Erith.  Unfortunately, it didn’t stop at Erith and we ended up at Abbey Wood, with a swift run over the bridge to the other platform to get the train back again.  That will teach us for not concentrating on the train announcements!

It’s been a fantastic day – we’ve seen lots and talked lots.  Alan told me lots of stories all day – unfortunately I’m not sure he finished one story before being sidetracked into another.  Still, it’s been very educational and great fun!

(At Sheila’s later, Alan mentioned that he’d like to walk the stretch around Reculver in Kent.  I pointed out that Sam had already earmarked that walk, but that he was very welcome to come anyway.  He told Sheila, “I suppose they’ll walk ahead and I’ll have to walk behind catching at their odd snatches”.  We assume he meant conversation!)