Day 7: Ramsgate to Deal

It’s a beautiful, warm morning as we stroll past hundreds of boats moored in Ramsgate Marina, a gleaming mix of vibrant colours. My wife, Jude, has joined me, and we will spend most of the day circling the Sandwich and Pegwell Bay Nature Reserve. It turns out to be a day of taking the long way round, both planned and unplanned.

At the junction of a path through Pegwell Bay Country Park, a sign offers the choice of walking along the busy and boring A256 or a rather mysterious “Alternative route”. Who can resist? This proves a little adventurous. Stepping over trampled barbed wire fences and passing rusting, abandoned vehicles, the path, if I can call it that, leads out into the marsh next to the River Stour. To get round a fence, we have to pick our way out to the water’s edge, at which point the track vanishes into the bog. Rather than turn back we press on, climbing over an embankment into a new car storage depot.

We arrive at an old wharf with a 12-foot drop into the river. Unfortunately, there’s no path, only a sloping, muddy bank running down to the wharf edge. Scrambling across on all fours, with nothing to prevent us sliding down and over the edge into the water, I sense that Jude is less than impressed with my choice of route. However, we get safely across and find ourselves in the A-Skip 4 U depot, surrounded by various loaders and trucks manoeuvring waste. Feeling a little out of place, I hail a truck driver, who reacts as though he sees hikers appearing from nowhere all the time and helpfully climbs down from his vehicle and escorts us out the front gate where we rejoin the dull, but safe, A256.

The next few miles are fairly unattractive roadside walking, although we do pass the Pfizer labs. Hopefully, everyone is hard at work on our vaccine. On approaching Sandwich it appears that someone has stolen the toll bridge, preventing us from reaching the historic town centre, which we can see only 100 yards away. Oh for a ferryman or even a rowing boat. The nearest crossing is some distance inland. Thankfully, a shuttle bus appears to take us round the detour.

Sandwich is an attractive medieval town with no shortage of listed buildings, but we only have time for a quick lunch next to the river before starting the 6 km walk round Shellness Point rather than taking the 1 km Saxon Shore Way short-cut direct to the coast. Despite a little confusion when planning the walk, this is not the Shellness naturist beach, which is on the Isle of Sheppey. It is a bit cold for that malarkey!

The embankment path allows us a fine view of the Kent Renewable Energy biomass plant. I like the contrast of silver and grey industrial straight lines with the wild estuary grasslands and winding river. We cross a golf course and Jude takes the opportunity to commune with the lone tree that we spotted on the horizon across the bay at the start of the day.

On reaching the coast once more, the wind and rain pick up and drive into our faces for the long straight stretch past The Royal St George’s Golf Club. It is due to host The Open in 2021. I wonder if you can watch it for free from the coastal path or do they close it off?

We finally reach Deal and I make the obligatory walk out to an empty pier head. It’s the end of a long hard day and we have both picked up niggles that make walking difficult. We must look a bedraggled and weary sight limping back to the car as a baker comes out of his shop to offer us free leftover baguettes. It’s a relief to take my boots off and put my feet on the dashboard as Jude is driving home. A warm bath and a cold beer await!

Walk distance: 19 miles.

Total distance: 119 miles.