North Downs Way Day 9 - Charing to Brabourne

Last night’s hotel was right opposite Ashford international station. Sadly, it is no longer really international, since the channel tunnel rail link here was suspended indefinitely in 2020. I know that there are many in this part of Kent who would love it to open again.

I caught the train with lots of time to spare, and listened smugly to the announcement that I had to be at the front of the carriages as Charing is a short platform. Only to discover that my sense of direction had let me down (no surprise there!), and the train set off in the opposite direction to the one I was expecting, necessitating a hasty scramble to the other end of the train, knocking into people with my rucksack and poles as I got there. This direction blindness, which is a source of hilarity to my friends, but a bit of a pain in this context, proved something of a theme today.

Charing has a lot of informative plaques about its history, one listing the various trades working out of the village in 1851, Of those I observed today, there are now a couple of corner shops, a bar that was open at 10 this morning but not at 4 yesterday afternoon, a butcher, an osteopath and an estate agent.

It was a brisk pull up the hill from the station, briefly turning along the busy road and then the Pilgrim’s Way was quietly waiting for me at the side. This was a section that is still maintained as a road, instead of being allowed to fall into just bridleway status.

Mirroring yesterday’s sheep, I passed a farm with some agitated guinea fowl calling out in alarm, and then a smaller homestead with various peacocks showing off to each other in the grey morning, unbothered by my presence.

Kev Reynolds, the writer of my Cicerone guide to the NDW talks of Arthur’s Seat, a well placed bench near this point, and talks enthusiastically of the time he sat there and listened to nightingales. I was on the lookout, as I don’t know that I’ve ever heard a nightingale, but I never discovered it. However, I did find Ralph’s seat under an oak tree - with his wife’s name underneath. It was so reminiscent of the opening of a show I wrote some years ago for a Royal Albert Hall performance. I was quite transported back.

There were some intriguing entrances at the similarly intriguingly named Burnthouse Farm.

And then what appeared to be a disused quarry? The cliffs were reminding me of the ones in Dover I’m going to see in a couple of days.

Round the corner I bumped into Swrah and Andrew whom I met yesterday. She was crouched on  the path photographing a gigantic snail.

It looked like the sort that the French or Romans would enjoy, perhaps with a little of the local wild garlic.

The road became a bridle path through Westwell Downs, with the beech trees iridescent green.

And then out into the open for a while, where I admired the flint cottages that seem to be organically part of this landscape. I enjoyed the Camino shell sticker on the pilgrims way signpost.  That’ll be me in a month!  It made me wonder about the differences I will find between this hike and the Portuguese pilgrimage. There will certainly be more people in the latter, it’s been another very quiet day today, whereas what I read of the Camino is that it’s very busy with pilgrims and walkers.

Portugal will have to work hard to match Kent for the vibes though. This corner of the county is a beautiful part of the world. Not impossibly glamorous, just gentle and still and apparently unchanged, and providing a great sense of peace in the people lucky enough to walk through it.

The path passed between fields of wheat and brassicas, all flourishing and full of potential. And then it ran towards a colonnade of trees on either side of a drive to a large house. I love this sort of view, the path beckoning on ahead, with who knows what I might find at the end.

The large house was Home Farm, part of the Eastwell estate. It was a happy nod to my love of the Archers, though I hope that this one hadn’t had to be sold due to an unfortunate poisoning of the local river. IYKYK.

It has been a fantastic year for mistletoe this year, we’ve noticed it a lot at home, and there were some spectacular examples here. I thought I would investigate what makes a good year for mistletoe, and Google supplied me with an article from the BBC which simply said ‘the weather’. I searched further and didn’t get anything much more useful, though I discovered that the Romans saw it as a medicinal cure-all, even though we now know it’s poisonous. What did they ever do for us anyway?  The druids used mistletoe to ward off evil spirits, which may be the origin of us hanging it over doorways. So important was it to the druids, that battles would be called off or truces agreed if mistletoe was found growing within sight of the battlefield. There you go, that’s your mistletoe facts for the day.

Past the big house, the path went down a tree lined avenue, the sound of Canada geese living their best life on the estate’s lake to my right.

Sadly lowly walkers were allowed no access to it, I’d thought fondly of a cup of tea by the water, but that was very much not allowed.

Exiting the drive I realised that the hotel that I had seen in the distance within the estate was part of the Champneys group, reminded me of my time staying in the Tring one when walking the Chiltern way. It had been the only place to stay in the area, honest! I had turned up filthy, rucksacked, booted and wet into the smart foyer, very much out of place in the berobed and manicured clientele. As I walked past this branch of the spa I saw a footpath sign to the E2 Grand Randonnee. This is a walk and a half, running from Stranraer for 1400 km to Dover, and then on eventually through Europe to Nice. 4800 km in total. That sounds fun!

Into Broughton Lees, where there were houses of various vintages surrounding a triangular village green. There was a  pub at the end at which I hoped there might be a loo I could use - whilst I waited for opening time I sat on a bench on the green, which turned out to be a cricket pitch, and added to my bladder’s burden with a cup of tea. They appeared to be building either a village hall or a cricket pavilion, a lovely wooden structure. Or I thought it could be a house, though they’d have had trouble with flying cricket balls. Later research told me that it was indeed a cricket pavilion, there had been a massive fundraising campaign to replace the old one which had been falling down, and the hope is that the new one will be open for the summer.

The landlady of the Flying Horse pub kindly let me use her facilities and much refreshed I continued, admiring the outrageously ebullient blossom on one house and the eponymous tree outside Bay Tree House.

Just beyond the village there is a split  in the NDW with mine going on to Dover and the other to Canterbury. I’d wanted to do the direct route as it’s nearer to the sea for longer, and is close to Hythe, which I love.  But when it came to it I felt quite regretful that I wasn’t going into Canterbury on foot. Some do a loop from here, all the way to Canterbury, on to Dover and back the way I am going, ending up in Broughton again. A walk for another time, perhaps.

The Pilgrim’s Way continues as a tarmac road here, so I put on my audio book (The Persians by Sanam Mahloudji) for a bit of diversion before having lunch. And so I wasn’t paying attention and missed the partially hidden sign to the NDW. It was a quarter of a mile before I realised and backtracked. Good job this morning has felt pretty easy walking so far.

The path walks alongside Perry Court Farm, firstly through its apple orchards, then its thriving poly tunnels.

I was startled by the grunting (they don’t really go ‘oink’, do they!) of pigs in the woods to my left, then two donkeys greeted me to my right.

A tractor in the field ahead, it was farm bingo.

I love a walk with a proper lunch stop in it. I knew that dinner tonight would be whatever I could get from the Wye Co-op, so I decided to eat well at lunchtime. I was tempted by the Tickled Trout, on the Stour.

But I decided to walk further into the town, and had a slap up lunch at the Wye coffee and kitchen. I sat next to an intriguing party of four men and women of my age and older, planning a weekend away, who all sported the most elaborate and incongruous tattoos. They really didn’t look like the type to be inked. But then maybe I don’t either. I very nearly opened a conversation about them, but then my egg and chips arrived, and the chips were a thing of such fantastic beauty that I concentrated on eating.

When paying my bill I chatted to Chloe, one of the very friendly staff. She didn’t want her photo taking, so I took one of the cakes instead.

The path runs through Wye churchyard, so I had a quick look inside, enjoying its interesting choir stalls all in black, and especially that the vicar is called Mr Holy. Really. He really is.

Outside, I spoke to a couple doing a recce of Wye for their U3A trip - I recommended the coffee shop’s chips very fervently.

Walking on past the beautifully cared for allotments, and then the closed down Wye College, I felt internally weighed down with lunch and externally weighed down with the dinner I’d bought for later. So I approached the oniy real hill of the day with a bit of caution. I skirted past a woman who was shouting ‘don’t you dare, come here’ to what appeared to be a runaway pony. When I got nearer I realised it was a wayward Great Dane.

Up the hill on a mixture of footpaths, road and unusually, resin bonded paths. These were weirdly out of place in the natural environment but lovely and springy underfoot.

And at the top a walker is thrown gasping out of a small copse and onto the heathland on which is scoured the Wye Crown, a chalk commemoration of the coronation of Edward VII. I had seen a glimpse of this from below, and from the top it is less comprehensible without walking on it, but the view down to the town more than compensated. This was the top and there were no more hills today.

Then followed a period of utterly lovely walking, grass underfoot, huge views, totally quiet. I had a chat with a group of disgruntled sheep huddled in a corner, and then the path went into a small wood at the beginning of Wye Downs National nature reserve.

This led quickly out again onto grassland, and more wonderful spacious views, looking down a steep dry valley called the Devil’s Kneading Trough.

The sun was mostly shining by now. I took off my rucksack, swapped texts with my lovely niece Flo (18 yesterday!!) drank my tea and lay in the springy grass listening to the birds with the sun on my face. I couldn’t have been happier.

The rest of the walk was more about finding my accommodation, off the path. On the map a footpath was shown down a steep hill to the farmhouse at which I’m staying. However, having stumbled through the rutted earth for some distance I decided that discretion etc, and retraced my steps for the second time today. A long and tedious bit of road walking followed with a slightly concerning pain in my calf. I’m hoping it’s just a tweaked muscle. Time will tell.

When I choose my accommodation I mainly go for convenience together with price. These adventures are about the walking, not going for luxurious bedrooms. But I really lucked out at Bulltown farmhouse. It’s a 14th century building that the owners have restored over the last 30 years to something really special.

I am writing this on the chaise longue in my bedroom, having eaten my picnic dinner in front of the most gigantic fireplace in ‘my’ sitting room. What a place. 

But my lacklustre directional skills continued even here. On returning upstairs from eating my dinner I couldn’t remember which bedroom I was in, and the rooms don’t have keys or numbers. So I picked one, and marched confidently into someone else’s bedroom.  I realised my mistake when I saw a bottle of wine on the bed and hastily exited. Sadly not taking the wine with me.

Stats

Distance travelled - 13.5 miles / 21.75 km

Total ascent - 1010 feet / 307 metres

Calories burned - 1340

Local tipple

A can of G and T from the Wye Co-op, quite warm by the time I drank it, but the reader will be relieved to know I forced it down.

Video of the day

https://www.relive.com/view/v7O9ZGRBXL6