Pugsworth in Kent

I had a week left before I had to be back in London for the PBI General Asembly. So I decided to do a tour of Kent (the Shire in the very south east corner of England, between London and Dover, and hopefully a bit of Sussex (next shire to the west, directly south of London). This would be a good test run for touring the rest of England. My basic plan on starting was a night in Rochester, two nights in Canturbury and then a night each in Dover, Hastings and Tunbridge Wells but of course it never turns out exactly as you expect. here's a bit I drafted after my first couple of days...

I've had a couple of long days on the bike, 50 miles (80kms) yesterday from Hyde Park in London to Cuxton near Rochester in Kent and then 30 miles (48kms) today I've only converted those distance just now, it seems so much further!. Today was supposed to be 40 miles but I jumped on a train in order to arrive on time to my Servas host. It's been quite hard work follwoing the National Cycling Track which isn't great quality and not very well signed. I've missed several turms and had to double back. Today I picked up a wider map of the area with cycle paths on it so I might just decide to find my own way. At one point Yesterday the path lead me down a very narrow path with a fence collapsing on one side only to run into a bridge that had been fenced off (obviously for some time) and having to go back and right around to the main road to cross the railway. Today I had to find my way through a makeshift rubbish dump to find the track continuation, thanks to some help from a local. I think I'll ring the national cycling network tomorrow and complain and suggest an audit of the route, sign markings and track quality. The map says that the route will be an "attractive, high quality, sign posted network... a national asset, open to everyone, there forever" it should read, "deteriorated and under-developed cycle tracks, for the experienced cyclist - a strong sense of adventure required!" Bu then I guess that you have to have a strong sense of adventure to do what I'm doing anyway. - Funny, I was reading a summary of Roald Dahl's work at the B&B last night, including some statements about him by colleagues and family. The biggest thing I picked up was everyone repeating how he thought it was so important to have a spirit of adventure. I geuss it rubbed of on me at least, and from Dad as well. I discovered there is a museum in his memory in Buckingham, which I will have to visit.

So my first night was a B&B in Cuxton approx 8 miles south of Rochester and had to pay £30 -($70!), the cheapest B&Bs are £23 or £20 if you're lucky but it was very nice and the cheapest thing around I could find - but I won't be relying on the B&B option too much any more.

The cycling is making me tired but I haven't noticed much soreness yet, just a bit in my quads, (front thigh muscles), they've been a few hills in the last couple of days. I have Bevan's old gloves but only use them in cold wind or rain. I've also had some good points to the cycling, great views of the countryside, laneways through farm country, a beautiful view of Canturbury Cathedral on the way in tonight, and a few things that have just appeared out of nowhere which has been great.

I spent the next two nights with Pauline a servas host in Canturbury, she is a retired teacher who used to work with young people with learning disabilities. She is the only host in Canturbury and has had quite a few travellers since joining last year and is really enjoying it. She was a bit hesistant about taking me at first because she's been really busy but we quickly warmed to each other and both really enjoyed my stay.

Two nights gave me a day to hae a look around Caturbury a beautiful little town (about 20,000 people I think but that is doubled by the temporary university population). The univeristy gives a great feel of vibracy as well, lots of young peple and all that. so with that and the Cathdral there is this real mix of the new with the history of old but still quite a small town. I spent a few hours at the Cathdral, a really beautiful place, much more space for reflection than Westminster Abbey (interestingly I found a place called Minster on the map in the north of Kent, including Minster Abbey, so presumably that's how Westminster got it's name). I particularly liked the two crypts at the Cathedral, sort of under ground, fairly dark with a very quiet reflective mood, (not in anyway creepy but just) a sense of retreat from the busy world. It was weird seeing several school groups coming through from different countries in Europe, I guess with all the history in Europe so close it makes complete sense to go on a school excusion to a whole 'nother country! Not something that ever occurred to me living in the Antipodeas (a term used regularly to refer to Aus and NZ). The other thing that seemed weird was that there was a school within the Cathedral compound - Kings no less. That's not weird in itself but can you imagine going to school, and even living, next to Canturbury Cathdral! It seems so weird.

Then I spent the afternoon looking around Canturbury, I rode around the old city wall, and then walked along the top of a section of it. Checked out the ruins of the old castle - free and was quite surprised to find someone sleeping in the dead end at the top of the stairs in such an unnatural position that it took me half a second to recognise it was a person - you know what the stair cases in these places are like, so tight you bump into something before you see it. I don't think I disturbed the person though. There actually are quite a few homeless folk in Cantubury given it's small population. Last stop in the way home was the beautiful creek which truns through the middle of the town and made for a great ride.

Tuesday I set off for Dover via Sandwich and Deal - about 30 miles The track was much improved from here and much easier to follow - actually it had been for the last 10 miles into Canturbury from Whitstable - however from Sandwich on I was going into a strong head wind. If I'd been smarter I would have done my looop the other may as the prevailing wind seems to be a south westerly which is basically stright along the coast here. Anyway, sandwich is a pretty little town, quite a maze actually of old buildings, and a nice park by the river, apparently ships used to be able to sail up what is now a small creek when the sea level was higher several hundred years ago. Deal reminds me of a typical Aussie seaside town except the the peach is all large pebbles and quite steep and all the buildings are old and english.

On the way to Dover I had a long ride up long hill but luckily this sheltered me from the wind and it was actually easier going uphill with no wind than flat along the beach into the strong head wind. Dover was pretty amazing, the harbour is completely a human construction with three sections of wall ringing of a section of the sea from all the walls and currents, pretty spectacular extending from the bottom of the more famous cliffs, which also looked great. Town then runs back up a couple of valleys away from the sea. (Noone builds on the hill tops becuase it is just too windy and unpleasant.)

Wednesday was overcast, wet, very windy and generally miserable, so that was a good excuse to take the train to Hastings and spend a few hours at Dover Castle first. The castle remains the best I've seen so far, so impressive on the hill top with about four rings of walls and then the keep - it must have been completely impregnable, it is also set up with some good historical displays which give you the feel of what it would have been like when inhabited, particularly all the different sounds that just play in the background as you wonder through. There are also the tunnels used during WWII which are quite interesting. I got to the train station about 4pm to discover the link between Dover and Folkstone is closed for major works with replacement bus services running. so I 8m rode to Folkstone and got the train to Rye, which Jo Beck had suggested was a beautiful little town worth seeing. She was right too, it's twon centre is quite historic, old cobbled streets on the hill top over looking the Romeny Marshes, I quite enjoyed crusing around it for an hour between trains. I then stayed at in the Hasting youth hostel (actually at Guestling Green so I never got to Hastings). This was my second night in a YHA, which are cheap enough to use out of London. My first was in Dover, wher I met Gareth who had cycled from Liverpool in a week including a couple of 70m (110km) days - not that's hard core! Not surprisingly he was coming down with something, but I've just heard from him and is okay, battling strong head winds on his way down the French cost to Spain, he has a job there from September so hopefully we'll catch up there later.

Thursday I rode up to Battle, as in the Battle of Hastings 1066. I had a great wander around the Abbey William the conquerer built around the field where the battle took place, and enjoyed exploring that story in some more depth. The town did not exist until then and grew up around the abbey. Next stop was Bodiam castle one of the finest examples of a Tudor Castle and one of the few remaining with a full moat. It was very picturesque - on the outside at least. Advertising was a bit misleading though because inside, not a lot remained, enough to piece together though the general lay out and there was an interesting video about castle life. From there I rode to Royal Tunbridge Wells, another interesting town. It was quite posh, oweing to it's fame as a place of 'health giving' hot springs (aparently there is a high iron content in the water?) and so it was frequented by high society and various members of the Royal family in times past - thus it's title officially bestowed by one of the Kings. So the malls were really quite something - lots of restaurants - but not quite as classy as Henley, and it was one of those place names I'd often heard and wanted to visit. The only problem was that B&Bs started at £45, no way. So I had to head back to Blackboys YHA near Uckbridge which meant bike to train 4miles, train 9miles, and bike to YHA 4 miles. Total for the day 30 miles (48kms) but over some quite steep terain. It was worth ducking back though, because I only paid £8 for the bed, got the train trip for free and best of all saw a wild deer in the woods on the way! Often as I ride along I disturb something close by in the woods as they dont hear me until I'm close and I hear things darting away, usually there only squirells or the occassional rat and so don't usually bother trying to spot them but this was much bigger and I looked just in time to see a beuatiful red dear leaping away through the trees - a magnificent moment. I also rode past a place called High Rock where there are these huge rocks remaining completely exposed on top of hill, (much more unusual here than in Oz) walking past were a group of people one carrying a digerdoo. Apparantly they were going to have an evening of 'natural' (my word, drums, dig, etc) music in amoungst the rocks. I would have loved to join them but had to move on.

Friday was my last day with the GA starting in London that night. The main event was Pooh Corner and the surrounding (100 acre) woods where AA Milne set the stories of Winnie the Pooh and his friends. On the way there was a great few of south of Kent and Sussex, down to the Southern Downs (where Battle is located) and some locals pointed out some key land marks. I visited 'the enchanted place' where AA Milne was laid to rest by his son Christopher Robin Milne, a beautiful little spot, within a feeling of enchanment that even a cynic like me could detect. I did an hours walk down to 'Pooh Sticks Bridge' where AA and Christopher played the first game of pooh sticks. I was quite obviously the right place as down stream from the bridge the river was choked with sticks used by all the tourists. there were even warning signs to collect stick before reaching the bridge and use only use 'pooh sticks' from the ground, not breaking them off trees. so I kept to small sticks to minimise my impact on the river and did some experimenting to see what sticks were better and what part of the river ran quickest. Smaller sticks were definately quicker. During my walk I also saw a pheasant, another tick on my list of English wildlife. The other highight of the day was passing this really really old steam tractor, which someone referrred to a traction machine. It was huge, made mostly of cast iron, including the front wheels which had no tire, only a kind of rubber belt around the cast iron. It was pulling an old iron trailer and an old (bit not quite as old) caravan - very cool.

I caught the train back to London and headed for the PBI GA at the Indian YMCA in Fitzroy Sqr. It had been a great week, mostly on the move. I've decided that I'm going to try and stick to 20-30 mile days to give me a chance to stop and see things and use the train in between to cover the distances. I'll also make more use of servas in the interesting towns and cities to give me rest days and time to have a good look around. All this will mean a bit of scaling back my expectations of how thoroughly I'll be able to explore the country side. England, might be small, but it's not that small and is so dense with people and history that there is a a lot to see. I am looking forward to a break from the travel during the conference.