Easy coastal walk with fine cliff top views, 3 classic seaside resorts, and a number of stunning sandy bays and coves that make it a great swimming walk. This might be an opportunity to try the Walpole Bay Tidal Pool on the approach to Margate. Being a coastal walk, there is not a lot of shade.
Low tide at Margate is 1430.
Turner Contemporary closes at 5pm.
Trains: Get the 0940 Ramsgate train from Victoria, arriving 1135. Return trains from Margate are xx004, xx39 to Victoria. Note that the High Speed options only seem to save around 10 minutes and some involve a replacement bus from Cantebury West. Buy a return to Ramsgate.
Lunch: Early on after 3km is the Charles Dickens in Broadstairs. After 7 km is The Captain Digby pub at cliff top level at Kingsgate Bay or 8 km is The The Botany Bay pub.
Tea: Many places, including The Mechanical Elephant, a Wetherspoons on the main seafront road, about 200m from the station.
t=swc.101
4 comments:
The Margate tidal seawater pool is indeed recommended - a grand place for a swim, particularly in the late afternoon when the sun is declining towards the west. Otherwise, low tide is a bit tricky on this coast. The main Broadstairs beach is always swimmable, but very busy. The nicer Stone Bay immediately to the north is not good at low states of the tide due to underwater rocks, and Botany Bay is the same. Between them, Kingsgate and Joss Bay are both, as far as I know, swimmable even at low tide. Kingsgate Bay in particular benefits from having no convenient car park, and so being less busy than its neighbouring beaches. All these beaches are sandy
The reason the high speed trains take the same amount of time as the Victoria ones today is that the line is CLOSED between Canterbury West and Ramsgate for engineering works. If you take the 10.07 train from Sri Pancras you will be on a REPLACEMENT BUS SERVICE from Canterbury to Ramsgate. Better is to take the 10.20 from St Pancras to Ramsgate, which runs along the North Kent Coast, arriving at 12.10 (ie only 5 minutes later than the Victoria train), though this offers no real time advantage over the Victoria train.
Being a sunny day, after a sunny week, all trains to Margate are likely to be VERY busy today, a fact that one of the key rail routes to the town is closed will not help one bit.... Personally if doing this walk I would be tempted to aim for the 9.10 from Victoria or the 9.20 from St Pancras, and if you are aiming to get on at an intermediate stop (Bromley South or Stratford International) I definitely would (standing up for nearly two hours is not fun!). You could fill the time till the others turn up by having a morning swim....
With 4 on the specified train (we got seats, but it was soon standing only), 3 on the bus train and 2 on a third train we eventually had n=9, reducing to 8 for most of the day. The early 3 had a swim at Ramsgate whilst waiting for the next train, and as seven, we met up with the other 2 at Broadstairs, which was predictably busy on the beach. Seven stopped for lunch at The Charles Dickens, and three of us went on to Stony Bay for a swim and picnic on the beach.
One, a newish walker, called it a day at Broadstairs and a regrouped 8 headed off to Kingsgate Bay for another swim. After an afternoon break at The Botany Bay pub we got to the Walpole Bay Tidal pool where three of us swam (in deep water for once), at 6pm in September! The others set off to find somewhere for pre-train drinks, where we caught up during the fine sun-set in Margate.
With fish & chips in hand, and armed with 'supplies' and now 7, we secured two tables on a much delayed train, feeling very content with the day, until Faversham, where the whole train was emptied as there wasn't a guard to go on to Victoria. A high speed pulled in leaving 3 of us standing and split between seats. At Gillingham 4 of us bailed out for the promise of seats on a following Victoria train, which we were lucky to get.
Despite the chaos, the mood on the trains seemed pretty good, presumably everyone appreciating the luck of the weather, a day with a pleasant 23 degrees and light sea breeze, before hitting the heat in London.
W=Sunny-with-a-light-sea-breeze
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