It’s not often I get the opportunity these days to go for a ride away from home, so I was looking forward to being able to take my bike on holiday to Kent last week.
We were staying at Littlestone-on-Sea, on the edge of Romney Marsh. I had a morning’s pass from the family, so decided on a simple route following part of the Romney Marsh Country Tour, which I knew was well signposted and would avoid any map-reading and consequent faffing about.
The marsh is an interesting part of England and extremely flat… so you get a very big sky and often strong winds, this day being no exception. I set off towards Hythe didn’t gain even a metre or two of elevation in 10 miles, and was constantly battered by a strong crosswind. I approached a level crossing just as the lights started, and watched the first RH&DR train of the day go past.
After 10 miles, I crossed the Royal Military Canal, built in 1804 to keep invaders out, and then straight up the fairly steep hill that formed the original coastline before the marsh was reclaimed, which was a bit of a shock to the system.
The next part of the ride was continually up and down the old coastline and into the wind, past the zoo at Port Lympne, and on through Hamstreet and other small villages to Tenterden.
From Tenterden, I was happy to be turning away from the headwind, and enjoyed a pretty clear run back to Littlestone with a strong tailwind, and enjoying the strange mixture of scenery… close-cropped fields with the local Romney sheep; turf farms; pillboxes; lots of drainage ditches full of tall green reeds; the distinctive churches; a huge wind farm, and in the far distance brooding away on the horizon, the power station at Dungeness. 70km in total, and back in time for a nice lunch.
I took some video too: