May 6, 1984: Chartham to Snowdown

Almost a month passed before the next expedition on the North Downs Way. It took me a great deal of time to recover from my sprained foot; when it was at last better a sore spot on the back of my right heel recurred painfully – it may have disappeared only because of the mouthfuls of Feldene taken for the former ailment. Until almost the last minute it was assumed that a party consisting of the Lees, Marge, Dorothy and Bertie would do Day 1 of this route – while I sat at home. But on Saturday I discovered that stretching exercises helped the painful heel and, as I could pack it in early if I needed to, I decided I might as well risk it.

We arranged for the Lees to pick us up at 7:30. Marge was already in the car. We drove speedily through the empty London Sunday streets, through the tunnel and along the M2, arriving in Canterbury with thirty minutes to spare before our 9:30 Chartham train. We even piled into the car a second time to hunt up a coffee shop, returning to drink our takeaway cups on the platform where, in our absence, the station buffet had maddeningly opened. Marge dropped my coffee; baleful eyes were cast by other passengers at poor Bertie, who sat innocently next to the rivulet on the platform.

We were on our train only for five minutes, alighting at the first stop. We paused here to adjust packs and add tape and then slowly ascended the hill down which Tosh, Harold, and I had scurried the previous month. Our place was taken by the vicar – who puffed down the slope hurriedly, accompanied by the sound of summoning bells. It took me a while to lose the pain at the back of the right foot, but I gradually lost consciousness of the injury and it never bothered me. To assist me in my uncertain progress I now sported a horn-handled cane – which Dorothy had presented me during my recent discomfiture.

It was not easy managing guidebook, cane, camera, and dog, and I often turned one or more of these objects over to fellow walkers – particularly when I wanted a snap or a consultation. Bertie had to be leashed all the way to Chartham Hatch because there was a good deal of traffic on the narrow roads. It was dry this morning but rather grey and chilly. Nevertheless many of the trees were now in blossom and these, against the green background, were a visual delight. Footing was also very firm, for there had been very little rain recently.

Following guidebook instructions to turn into Nightingale Close we ended up in a relentlessly suburban cul-de-sac in the middle of downtown Chartham Hatch. But as we stood puzzled on the pavement, our way blocked by lawns and garages, a first floor window shot up behind us and a friendly voice inquired if we were looking for the North Downs Way. We belonged behind this lady’s house, not in front – a remedy we soon made. The little lane into which we were directed gave Bertie his first chance to be off-lead.

We followed a track into woods on the east side of the village. I could hear cattle lowing and as we passed Petty France Farm Tosh and Harold shouted that a dog had spotted us and was heading our way. At first I feared that we were going to be seen off by some vicious hound, eager to protect his turf. But when the red-collared golden Lab reaches us it was clear that he only wanted to play with Bertie.

We were thus joined by Skip, for this was the name recorded on his identification disc. He and Bertie pranced about good-naturedly as we made our way to Bigbury Camp, but when we reached open ground above the A2 we decided that Skip needed to return to his place origin – almost a mile behind us. In this desire we were not joined by our new companion.

At the stile onto a bridge road over the motorway we tried all sorts of strategies. Tosh, Dorothy and Bertie crossed the highway and descended on a path parallel to the road, out of sight to the rest of us. Harold, Marge and I tried various commands, clapped our hands, and sternly forbade the Labrador to follow us any longer. “Do something mean!” my friends insisted. I approached the golden hurricane, brandishing my cane – a clue for Skip to turn on his back so I could stroke his tummy. Harold and I retreated to mid-bridge while Marge crawled back under the stile in an effort to show and tell. Skip was not impressed. Each time he was forbidden to do so he slithered through the stile and followed us. We gave up, assuring ourselves that eventually he would grow bored with our nonsense and go home.

Neither Allen and Imrie, whose text was written before the completion of this highway cutting, nor Herbstein, whose map failed to correspond to the signposts hereabouts, proved particularly useful on this stretch of the route. We were misled by a public footpath stile – which invited us to hop a fence. I was sure this would be the end of Skip but he managed to scramble through here somehow. When I decided we had taken a wrong turning it became necessary to so some reconnaissance in an orchard. This I did, accompanied only by the loyal Skip, while the others returned to the original path. They were soon able to see a confirming plinth and when Skip and I caught up with them, we headed downhill to cross a stream by a footbridge. Skip waded in and I was not eager for Bertie to follow this example. We then climbed up Golden Hill, a National Trust property, and Skip actually chose a side path towards the summit. This encouraged us to believe that he had given up on us – but a minute or so later he was at our side in suburban Harbledown. However a jogger heading our way attracted his attention and by the time we reached the first of Canterbury’s roundabouts he was gone.

We had decided to return to the train station and move the car. So we continued on our easterly line to St. Dunstan’s and turned right. The town was full of blossoms and flowers and, in spite of the grey day, a chill wind, and the whizzing traffic, it was very pleasant walking – even on pavement. Ahead of us was West Gate and, after making our way over the rail line, we were soon at the station road. Bikers in front of a pub asked us for the time. It was twelve of twelve. They laughed when I asked them when opening time was. We had managed to arrive just in time to move our car and be ready to enter our own pub at noon.

But something now happened to throw us off our schedule, because just as we reached the car we were joined by the ubiquitous Skip! This time we were not at all convinced that the dog could find his way home. There was a conference with the station personnel, who recommended that we take the dog to the police station. It was too far to walk and as we wanted to drive to the East station anyway we decided to put Skip in the car. A British Rail guard supplied a piece of twine as a makeshift lead. Skip did not hesitate at all when we climbed into the Granada; he sat in my lap happily (if heavily) while we zipped around several roundabouts (one of them twice) before finding a parking lot at the back end of the East station.

With Skip tugging mightily we had to walk around the place to regain its entrance, the rear platform gate being locked, and here I reconfirmed our return trip time – getting a third BR answer to this same question, incidentally. More information was also sought on the whereabouts of the police station and we continued on foot to the next roundabout. Tosh and Dorothy took our friend inside and the police, who called the number on his identification disc, took him off our hands. We were at last confident that good old Skip would make it home safely – ready for his next adventure.

We were also directed by the Canterbury police to the Cross Keys pub down the street, but they didn’t serve food and weren’t forthcoming about who might (and had a yappy Jack Russell) – so we departed and made further local enquiries. We had better luck at The Phoenix, where Tony and Daphne were serving jacket potatoes and curried chicken. A chap asked me if I really came from Michigan (whose symbol I wore on my sweatshirt). “I’ve just been teaching at Eastern Michigan in Ypsilanti,” he told me. Then there was a barside contest to guess Bertie’s breed. Tosh put sugar on her potato instead of salt but otherwise we had a jolly and relaxed time. I had been worrying that by the time we had satisfied everyone’s lunchtime pub requirements that the local hostelries would all be closed. But by twenty of two we were ready to shove off again.

We made slow progress in finding the right egress from Canterbury, but in the end made no wrong turnings. As we passed the Chaucer Hotel I reminded Dorothy that she and I had sat at the outdoor tables we were now opposite – having drinks with the Platts in 1970. She had no memory of this or of the huge parking lot next to St. Augustine’s Abbey, where we spent much time waiting for a wayward bus on our outing with M.S.U. students that summer. From today’s coaches there emerged a long file of French girls – heading for the loo. Dorothy nipped in at the head of this line while the rest of us waited to see how many girls the loo would hold.

We found the restart of the NDW off Spring Lane. There followed a rather uninteresting mile next to playing fields, across the railway, and through a suburban estate. Then the orchards resumed and things became very pleasant indeed. A carpet of bluebells ran luxuriously amid other wildflowers beneath the curve of a wood not yet in full leaf. The village of Patrixbourne proved to be an unexpected jewel, with charming, antique buildings, a streamlet, do-it-yourself topiary, and a church with an ancient tympanum. I had been prepared by Herbstein for a dull plod thereafter – but he must have walked this part of the route after its autumn scouring, for all was green and verdant now.

We walked uphill on a lovely track next to a woods, almost immediately encountering a mature couple in rucksacks, walking the other way. He wore his OS map in a plastic sleeve on his chest; she had just freshened the lipstick on her birdlike lips. “Huh,” she snorted, “We’ve been doing this path for nine days and you’re the first walkers we’ve met.” I was full of admiration for their persistence and speed, for they were almost finished with a walk that would take me fifteen days – but our praises did not appease Hilda Odgen of the Hills, who was disgruntled that hubby had gone on to take in the Canterbury loop without warning her.

The map shows the NDW pressed up against the shoulder of the highway to Dover but we had now climbed well above the roadway – most of which was hidden from view in a cutting on the right. When we had veered off diagonally from the motorway we stopped for a rest behind a screen of trees. Tosh passed around some coffee, still warm, from the thermos she had filled before departing this morning.

The efficient waymarking that had been characteristic of the Kent paths we had been traversing since last summer unfortunately gave way now to an indifferent pattern indeed. On the long stretches through featureless fields it was not always easy to know where we were. A few poles seemed to indicate the line but these were widespread and not connected by any discernible path. We walked through a field of sheep who were scattered over a smooth and pathless pasture, twin lambs wagging their tails ecstatically at their mother’s teats.

Bertie, leashed of course, behaved quite well and there was no panic in the flock this time, just a sense of uneasiness within the human contingent over the proper route. Once we paused for several minutes to see if we could discern anything ahead, stile, gate, or pole, that might indicate the line of our march. Marge kept insisting that such a stile was visible on the road off to our right and was vexed that I wouldn’t consider it – even though I knew that our route must lie straight ahead. I could not see how those coming in the opposite direction could have had any clue where to go at certain junctures. It was as if the path planners had lost enthusiasm for the project, now that Canterbury had been reached.

Nevertheless it was very beautiful this afternoon; the sun was out now, all was green and golden, and at last some recognizable landmarks appeared – Upper Diggs Place and the nearby cemetery. We seem to have missed a half left here, making good the error when we reached a road where we made a corrective maneuver to reach the track to Womenswold. The village seemed to be a decaying relic of an ancient age. A radiant field of yellow rape was in full bloom to the north.

I wanted to get us to Snowdown halt a little before six and so I had been leading a relentless charge eastward. We seemed to be getting more and more breathing space until I discovered that my watch had stopped several minutes earlier. Dorothy and Harold, checking their watches, each gave us train time minus thirty minutes – with a little less than a mile to go. By the time we reached the Snowdown Road it was again very chilly – with a strong wind – an ending not unlike that of the Wye trip in November. The dog seemed to be running out of steam.

Tosh and Marge were first to reach the station, a structure dominated by the idle colliery whose miners were then participating in the famous strike. The halt was full of graffiti on the subject – “Coal not Dole,” for instance. We had only a brief ten-minute wait on the platform – last snacks and snorts from the whisky flask – and a short ride back to Canterbury East. Of course we didn’t have an easy egress from the station. Harold and I had to descend under the tracks to pay for our passage from Snowdown while an unhappy guard came over to unlock the gate that separated the girls from our car. This was a process that took all too long for the ladies; by the time the guard had arrived they had scaled a small wall and dropped into the car park unaided. Once again we had a swift and uncomplicated return journey to London.

To continue with the next stage of our walk you need:

Day 13: Snowdown to Dover