We set off this morning from Epsom in optimistic mood – we were wearing shorts!
We started walking from Herne Bay
station at 10.30 am and, by the time we reached the sea front, it was
raining. Our first landmark of the day
was three miles away, but it was in view straight away – the twin towers of
Reculver church. This spurred us on and
we marched off along the prom, past a dozen or so camper vans parked up,
watching two or three people windsurfing.
The rain came and went as we passed dog
walkers wrapped up (sensibly) against the weather.
Reculver vanished from view as we had to head inland,
briefly, through Bishopstone Glen and then up to the top of a meadow. Sweeping before us was a fantastic view of
the Isle of Thanet way off in the
distance. We strode on and passed a
large group of “walkers”, but, after passing them, we decided they weren’t
proper walkers as NOT ONE of them acknowledged us!
I’d been looking forward to doing this part of the coast for
ages and when we reached Reculver church, I wasn’t disappointed. A fantastic landmark. We were so excited that we had to sit down
and have lunch – a huge fried breakfast each!
After lunch, we set off along the sea wall that we could see
stretching all the way to Birchington.
The area is a huge nature reserve and we saw lots of interesting birds
including shelducks, oyster catchers and what we thought were either
sandpipers, dunlins or redshanks! If
only we had Bill Oddie with us! The rain
had given up by this point and we were walking in sunshine.
We reached Birchington which was very pretty with its rows
of yellow and blue beach huts. I was
tempted to have a paddle – the beach was lovely and sandy – but we might have
had to stay for the rest of the day. We
had seen four kites being flown from quite a way back and wondered why they
were being flown over the sea. It was
only when we drew closer that we saw the chaps that were in harnesses, attacked
to the kites, and their surf boards.
There weren’t many people out and about and we decided that Birchington
was like Bexhill – full of retirement flats.
We continued past the town along the top of the cliff until
we could find a way down to a prom that continued all the way to Westgate on
Sea. There must have been a job lot of
yellow and blue paint because all the beach huts here were identical to the
ones we had seen earlier. We had
discarded our coats by this time and the sea was all sparkly in the
sunshine. We sat down for a well
deserved drink on the front. All along
this part of the coast are chalk cliffs, but nowhere near as big as the ones at
Dover. Houses seem to have been built right up to
the edge of them and plants in the gardens could be seen overhanging the
cliff. In the cliffs themselves were man
made tunnels and bunkers – obviously defences built during the wars.
Off we went again on the final stretch into Margate.
We started to speed up as the rain clouds behind us were gathering again
and, as we reached the town at four o’clock, it got cooler and the rain began
to fall again.
I had a brilliant day and it made a change to be
actually walking by the sea – something I haven’t done when I’ve joined Susan
for previous days. I can’t wait until
the next time!
