Viking Coast Path 1: Reculver to Broadstairs

[faustus]

There are only a couple of buses a day to Reculver, and fortunately I catch it. I walk across to the toilet block as this will be my last chance to go for a long time. It is 10am. I try to take a photo of the cross and the twin towers of St Mary's, but my batteries are run down. As I change them, it begins to rain. I have three choices right now: to abort, to head west as per the original plan and take up part of the Saxon Shore Way, or to head east. The rain might pass. I head east. I pause to pick up a stone to carry with me - there's already one in my pocket from the walk to Whitstable.

I poke around the ruined medieval church and the Roman wall briefly - I spent longer when here with lamentables and abrinsky - and head past the holiday camp. The Kentish Flats Offshore Wind Farm is visible in the struggling sun, and most of them are rotating for once. I won't have this to look at, as I'm headed east.

The north wall protects the holiday park, and then will head around Thanet. It's a good surface, if dull - it's more or less flat and there is little variation even in the colour of the concrete or tarmac. It does curve, a little inland here, toward the sea there, but it's the sort of surface which while easy to walk doesn't give a sense of accomplishment, of targets met. To the south the ground is gently undulating, aide from the creeks that form the oyster farm. Every so often I look back, to reassure myself that the twin towers are receding into the distance.

I walk parallel to three people on the beach, who appear to have GPS equipment on their rucksacks. They appear to be surveying the strand. I can't tell what they are looking for. The occasional cyclists pass. Already this seems a long way from anywhere else. And yet my iPod is occasionally challenged by a passing train, and , once, a plane appears to hover overhead as it takes off with what feels like painful slowness. In the distance there is a glimmering line: the acres of greenhouses recently built.

There is a lagoon at Coldharbour, with a scattering of birds, but nothing that exciting. But this is a dividing line, as I could head south hear along the Wantsum Walk, and skirt the Isle of Thanet. This is the dividing line the Reculver fort had been built to defend, although I can only assume that the Wantsum was both wider and a delta, as we are a good mile from Reculver. It was wider but not that wide.

There is another curve inland, and I'm noticing the smell: aniseed-y. It would appear to be wild fennel. I also notice apples growing on what are now wild trees, and may just about be the remnants of long grubbed up orchards. They are tantalisingly just out of reach. Snails are also sheltering against the wind, braced against the bottom of the sea wall.

Another, moreorless drained, lagoon, Plum Pudding, marks a return to civilisation. I allow myself a pitta, despite having only been walking for an hour or so. I am caught up in an extended family and their bikes and dogs. Too slow to hang back from, too chaotic to overtake without risk. The path rises to the Minnis pub and a proper seafront. A waymarker lets me know I've gone 3 1/2 miles and it is 5 to Margate.

I buy a 99 from perhaps the world's surliest teenager - I'd interrupted his moping. I sit and lick it in a shelter, looking out to sea. The rain has passed, and the sky is blue, if moody with clouds. I figure I'll be lucky to avoid rain. It's midday before I'm off again, too long a rest, but I ought to be in Margate for two.

At one point I'm directed up a slope to the road, and a patch of grass designed for dog walking. Ewell Bay. I pause for a bottle of water and then cut across the grass to the road, and follow the top of the cliffs around. I admire some of the architecture of the mansions here - a couple are deco inspired. There is some money here, or has been. The signing isn't the clearest, but I rejoin the promenade when I can.

I pass through what appear to be identikit bays: Birchington, St Margaret's, Westgate-on-Sea, although not necessarily in that order. I've been to one of them before, but it all looks different with the tide so far in. Seawall has given way to promenade, and rows of beach huts, few of which are being used today. Occasionally it widens out much more, and I wonder if there were once cafe and toilet buildings there. Despite this forming part of a cycle route, large stretches demand a dismount. It would be frustrating. I pause to watch some kids build a dam to hold back the still encraoching tide, but it is hopeless. Suddenly I am eight and in Skeggy again.

The white tower on the front at Margate is getting closer, as are the hospitals. Once Margate was centre of tb recuperation, with thousands of patients taking the airs. I'm not sure what the hospitals are planned to be now. I pass crazy golf and a statue to life boat men, and the faded glory of Dreamland.

I'm down on water so try to buy two litres of pop - this is hassle since the newsagent's till is broken. On a triangle of grass I watch kids play football, and another couple of kids cycling a cart around the paths. Time passes. Broadstairs is a couple of hours, so I should be there for five and the last bus.

Onwards. 2.30.

The route, lightly signposted at best, is unclear here, but I bear left through a fairground and pick up the promenade. I pass the old lido and the back of the Winter Gardens, and note how sometimes the cliffs are reinforced by bricks and concrete. There is an old cliff railway and what looks like a broken lift. There is nothing to say this is the route, but if I keep the sea on my left I shouldn't go wrong. Ahead there are ships queueing in the Channel. A couple of children mess around, another three fish.

There is a growing stench - either sewage or rotten seaweed, and there is much seaweed on the exposed shore. It is far from pleasant.

Once I look up and see signs for the coastal path and I figure I probably ought to be up on the cliff top. The promenade ends at beach and it's a little crowded to cross to the next part of the promenade, besides it curves out of sight and may be a dead end. A blue-painted flight of steps lead up to the top of the cliffs.

The path slopes down and there's an opportunity to get back onto the promenade, which I take, and this eventually directs me off again, near Foreland. The path cuts around a golf colf and skirts water utility buildings, and again I'm not sure I'm on the route. I spot a timy blue sign pointing back - yes, I'm fine.

The tide is receding from the cliffs, and there is a particularly attractive bay: Botany Bay. A sign tells me this is Broadstairs, but no map shows me how far I am from the centre. A take a breather on a bench, and a small child, no more than four, cycles up to me and asks me "Do you live on the streets?"

I can't look that bad, but apparently I do. There are too many parents around for an accident to happen.

I have two miles to go, and it's around four. I spot a tower, and assume it is Bleak House in Broadstairs. Nope, just a tower on a golf course, but Kingsgate Castle is more impressive. The path takes a sharp right turn and returns to a road. I cross to the pavement and follow the curve road up and down the hill. Time is getting on and I'm tired. I look at the map to see a quicker route to the town centre, but I'm stuck with this road. There is a lighthouse ahead of me that looks like a good point to rest again.


The pavement runs out and I cross the road again, then notice the cycle route parallels the road. I cross again, and ascend toward the lighthouse. The wind is picking up, and I can't tell whether there's a route across to my left, or whether you stay on the route. The map reading skills are fading. Over to my right are open fields, and the wind is whipping off them; I make little headway against it. An old man on a bicylce watches me from the top.

I take a decision: the route here enters a private housing estate, and I'm running out of time. I leave the stone I picked up at Reculver on the street sign, and follow the road into town. Even this takes longer than expected and I spot a bus stop. I wait, and wait, and the time for the bus comes and gos. It's only after I've given up that it comes. Fortunately they can be hailed between stops.

Eighty pence gets me into town, a couple of minutes, and I ascend the hill toward the stop. Didn't it used to be on Belvedere? No sign. Up another block and there it is - but I seem to have missed it. I can catch a bus to Margate and maybe pick up a later bus there, or I can catch a bus to the station and take a train via Ramsgate and West Station. But the panic is over - the bus was running late. Homeward bound, with a bath in mind.

When I come back I can pick up the route where I left it, although I criss crossed it on the way into Broadstairs. The signs say I covered eleven miles, but I reckon closer to thirteen. I'm hoping Broadstairs to Pegwell Bay can be done in a day - which would line me up for the Stour Valley walk from coast to source.