North Downs Way - Charing to Chilham

And now, the end is near, just one more leg before we face the final curtain... .  After trundling up hill and down dale, Ken's marathon walk along the North Down's Way reached its penultimate leg on Saturday 23rd July. This stretch, from Charing to Chilham, was a somewhat more strenuous hike than the previous one, following the route to Canterbury like the Pilgrim's of old. Quite a bit of the route shares the path with the Pilgrim's Way and along the shaded paths with their deeply worn tracks its quite easy to pretend you are the Wife of Bath or the Miller, en route to the shrine of Thomas a Becket.  

As usual, Ken's weather provider came good, and we had a sunny day, though the two mile section through King's Wood was most welcome, especially as it was uphill, though without the intervention of any bandits or robbers - apparently a common problem back in the day.  The views across the fields were lovely, it is easy to see why Kent is called the Garden of England.

We ended with a brief visit to the town of Chilham for some refreshment, which would have been longer had we known our train had been cancelled and that we would have to wait an hour for the next one. We then headed off on the slow train back to town to prepare for the final pilgrimage in October.

Sue U.  2nd August 2016

Chilham Castle

Refreshment stop at The Flying Horse