February 11, 1998: Swale to Teynham
Milton Creek
On this day the Lees and I took advantage of some mild February weather to undertake our fifth walk on the Saxon Shore Way. Everyone needed the exercise that this outing would provide and I had figured out how to get us launched as late as a 9:05 – from London Victoria – and still complete twelve and a half miles before nightfall. We met near the ticket counters, after having purchased returns to Teynham. There was time enough to get some hot chocolate for me and some coffee for the Lees (with much fussing over whether the right amount of milk had been added to the cup of the ulcer patient, Harold).
We drank these concoctions while speeding east on a fast train. The conductress was a bit nonplused when we presented Teynham tickets, since this train didn’t stop there, but we assured her we would get off at Sittingbourne, take the shuttle to Swale, and walk to Teynham. She was relieved that she didn’t have to look up connecting train information for us and equally astonished that anyone would think of walking this stretch.
I wanted the Lees to use the train loos because I knew we would not have any time to find them on the platform at Sittingbourne, which we reached at 10:00. Our shuttle was waiting on an adjacent platform and we threw ourselves aboard; it took off at 10:05. No conductor ever appeared to ask us for money. In nine minutes we had reached the little Swale halt, where we had flagged down a train in October, soon descending to the highway that brings a daunting stream of traffic over the Kingsferry Bridge. Finally a kindly lorry driver waved us across and we were able to climb over the crash barrier on the opposite side and down to a parking lot – where someone had set up a burger bar in a white van. At about 10:20 we were able to make our way east, under the railway bridge, as we began a five-mile trek through a rather dismal landscape back to Sittingbourne.
The weather was sunny and may have reached the mid-fifties, bit there was a strong breeze blowing from the southwest and I wore my blue 1974 Pennine Way jacket throughout the day. The views to our left were quite nice, with the Swale separating us from the Isle of Sheppey, and the footing, often on grass-covered sea walls, quite good. There was a muddy section, also on a raised dike, that we had to traverse to get around Ridham Docks, where a large ship was being loaded. I snuck behind the first available cane break for a clandestine pee. After a march to the south we rounded a corner and headed east again, walking along the edge of a factory road, with huge lorries raising dust. After half a mile we reached the sea wall at the Swale again, but our direction had shifted to the south and this meant that we were walking into the wind.
My UCLA cap flew over the edge once and I had to climb down to retrieve it. A few minutes later the same thing happened and I began to wear the hood of my jacket over the top of the cap. When I buttoned the hood, however, the button seemed to want to rest on my Adams apple and that was not too pleasant. With the Kemsley Marshes on our right we now progressed through an industrial wasteland, some of it devoted to sewage treatment and some to manufacture. In all, the sense of smell was in for an insult for the next three miles.
The route was well marked in red by the proprietors of these unsavory establishments, mostly to keep passersby from wandering into dangerous ground; huge earth-moving equipment was spreading muck and ashes on our right and one tractor had marooned itself on a hillock of earth at the center of a newly landscaped field. As we neared a paper factory there was some ambiguity over how to continue, and we actually walked into the works and asked a chap if he knew where the Saxon Shore Way continued. He directed us back to the office at the site entrance – where we discovered that our turnoff sign had been hidden by a blue earthmover parked at the side of the road.
We now followed tidal Milton Creek toward Sittingbourne – “If this had been Standingbourne we would have seen the town much earlier,” I told Tosh. The latter lady was about to be seduced by another ancient dumpsite, one that reminded us a great deal of the Thameside site we had encountered on the London Countryway march to Tilbury Docks. In spite of the protests of the gentlemen in the party, who were eager to escape the wind, she dropped off the trail to rummage around on the top of a pile of broken crockery, emerging after a few minutes with several little bottles, a broken rose-colored pitcher, and a piece of a dinner plate. She used the morning’s newspaper to wrap each of these treasures up – with Harold muttering about the ugliness of each in turn. Tosh had recently started an Open University geology course and he could already see how rocks were soon going to cover every flat surface in the house – he didn’t need junk pottery too.
We neared civilization after two hours of walking, passed between wire fences and emerged on Gas Road. We then had to follow busy streets around two roundabouts before abandoning the SSW to pass beneath our rail line and enter the town of Sittingbourne itself. We could see no sign of a pub or any other place where we might get some lunch, but as we penetrated further south we at last came onto the high street. Harold asked a pretty local woman for some advice on pubs, but while he was doing this I spotted the Ship Inn across the street. So this is where we entered the door of the saloon bar at about 12:40, spending a very congenial hour over lunch and lager in the process.
Rosie, the oldest barmaid in Kent, took time between puffs on her cigarette, to tell us about her £20,000 win in the national lottery (“Even had to open a bank account for the first time”). This intrigued Tosh so much that she painstakingly filled out a form for today’s draw and even disappeared to file it at the local newsagent. She had scampi and chips and Harold and I had plaice and chips. The Lees drank a pint each (Tosh beginning with her patented half a bitter shandy) and I drank a pint and a half. The food was quite good and the customers – as geriatric as ourselves (I had turned 60 since our last walk) –quite chatty. “So are you taking some time to visit the countryside of our beautiful land?” Rosie asked me. “No,” I said, “we live here.” I was a bit worried about the time, since I didn’t want to lose the daylight and we still had seven and a half miles to go, so I made sure the Lees ordered their coffee before they had finished lunch. We left at about 1:40 – Rosie insisting that Tosh send her a postcard if she won anything in the lottery. She did not win anything.
We retraced our steps to Eurolink Way and headed east again, tuning north on Castle Road, east again on Dolphin Road, and north again on Church Road. Things smelled better on this side of Milton Creek and we actually passed a number of residences and the grounds of the Sittingbourne Football Club, whose wrought iron gate bore the legend “Bourne To Win.” At the ruins of the 12th Century Murston Church we headed back, through a building site, to the shores of the Creek. The guidebook mentions that the creek had once been choked with barges taking bricks to London in exchange for rubbish and manure and, though surviving sprit-sail barges seemed to be at the Dolphin Museum now, there was still a brick factory for us to walk around as we headed back to the Swale. There were a number of gents walking dogs on this stretch and also some fisherfolk.
I was well out in front here, trying to set a good pace, and Tosh, who was looking for a place to pee and suffering from a bruised toe, was well behind. The Lees caught up with me as I rounded the disused Oyster Pond and regained the Swale sea wall. Immediately ahead was the site of the abandoned Elmley Ferry; a hulk rested off shore and an old couple in a car were having a picnic at the roadhead. (Tosh was certain they were waiting for a shipment of drugs.) There now followed a long stretch of almost two miles as we headed due east on the sea wall, a channel of water on our right and the Swale on our left. Excellent progress could be made in spite of a wind that continued to buffet us from the south. I paused once to have a pee behind an earthen bank, having sent the Lees ahead, but there was actually nothing in this landscape that could pass as a bush, let alone a tree.
At last the sea wall curved to the right as we entered the precincts of Conyer Creek and headed south ourselves. We had another mile or so to go as we advanced slowly toward Conyer village and its maritime quay. The tide was out now and only a thin trickle of water danced in a narrow streambed at the bottom of the channel. We had to circumnavigate the boatyard on some rough paths, emerging at last in civilization where I paused for the first time in six and a quarter miles to have a drink of water and take out my OS map. It had just gone 4:00.
My next task was to find a way to get us, without any road walking, down to Teynham Station. The OS map indicated a right of way through an orchard but this turned out to be on a track beside these trees, with fences on our right warning us that trespassers would be shot and prosecuted (if they survived). We had missed a 4:20 train and I was now aiming for a 4:31. Tosh didn’t help matters by dawdling over a crop row and trying to figure out what the crop was. Our track, just as I had hoped, reached the rail line, which we crossed, several blocks to the west of the station entrance. The fastest connection to London, I knew, required us to board a local to Faversham, going in the opposite direction, and it was just arriving. We made a dash back over the line on a bridge and the driver kindly held his steed for our arrival. We had less than five minutes in Faversham and we were soon speeding back through Teynham and on to Victoria (arriving about nine minutes late), which we reached shortly after 6:00 – at the end of a most successful and welcome outing.
To continue with the next stage of our walk you need: