North Downs Way - Otford to Wrotham

Seven of us turned out on Saturday 19th April to walk the next leg of The North Downs Way from Otford to Wrotham (about 6 miles).

Not being renowned for my sense of direction it took me a good 20 minutes to negotiate my way from London Underground through the maze of tunnels and upgrading works at London Bridge to the main line area where I was to meet the others 'upstairs where we met last time'. Now, I did not do the last leg so I had no idea where 'upstairs where we met last time' was.

Ken had left his mobile on the table indoors so I was fortunate to bump in to Susan who had done the last leg and did know where to find him and we then made our way to Platform 1 for the train to Otford via Sevenoaks with 10 minutes to spare.

It was a lovely warm sunny day (despite the prediction of possible showers) and within minutes of exiting the station at Otford we set off at a goodly pace and were quickly faced with a really steep climb up to the start of the walk. I am not sure if it was my super warm walking jacket or altitude sickness but it took me 5 minutes at the top to get myself back to something like normal breathing.

From then on it was just a wonderful walk along the paths passing what seemed to be miles of bluebell woods - I have to say that I have not seen that many bluebells in such lovely surroundings for years - it must just be an exceptionally good year for them.

Somewhere around halfway through the walk Ken announced that there was a pub shown on the map and that perhaps we could make a comfort stop there. There were no objections to that suggestion and we duly made a short detour to said pub entering same through an old wooden gate to an outside garden area with some pretty trees/shrubs etc and a comfortable looking seating area. It would be honest to say that the place looked a little jaded, but we were a bit off the beaten track. What initially looked promising then proved to be a very odd affair altogether. There was the normal pub sign swinging outside reading 'The Rising Sun', all these table and chairs to sit on but no obvious door to enter the pub or loos to be found despite all of us walking round the gardens looking for a way to get in.The owner's dog was going nuts inside the pub with all the action that was going on outside. Eventually we gave up looking because by then it was after 1pm and nobody appeared from inside to investigate the noise or open up so we just sat outside at the tables and had our own drinks and fed tit-bits to the very pregnant cat that seemed to be part of the establishment. I think the pub had long since closed for trade and that we had gate-crashed what was now someone's private residence. Half an hour later we resumed our walk all of us just a little bemused by the whole affair.

On reaching our destination at Wrotham we caught a local bus to Sevenoaks and were of course hungry and thirsty so set about finding somewhere to eat. Some of us ate at the local Fish and Chip shop and others in a pub just further down the road.

All tastes having been catered for, we caught the train from Sevenoaks back to London Bridge and home.

Participants: Ken (leader), Bernie, Clive, Paul, Sue U., Trevor, Val.           Distance: 6 miles

Val Shepherd, April 24th 2014