The Lydd Ranges are closed this weekend, see here. Low Tide is at 14.08, so we will avoid the very most of the shingle.
Length: 21.8 km/13.6 mi or 17.6 km/11.0 mi or
27.3 km/17.0 mi
Ascent/Descent: negligible
Net Walking Time: ca. 5 hours or 4 hours or
6 hours (incl. time added for the shingle and sand for options 1 and 3)
Toughness: 4 out of 10 or 1 out of 10 or 5 out
of 10
Take the 09.40 Margate train from St. Pancras I’nal (Stratford
I’nal 09.48), change at Ashford (10.18/10.24), arrives Rye 10.46.
[Trains from Victoria or Charing X to Ashford can’t be recommended, as they
either just miss the connection, or leave only one minute to change trains!]
At the end of the walk, from Lydd Church take buses back to Rye (xx.53, Line 100) or on to Ashford (xx.04 to
17.04 only, Line 511) or on to Folkestone Central (xx.21, Line 102) and from
Lydd-on-Sea take buses on to Folkestone Central (xx.49, Line 103) or to Ashford
(xx.14 to 17.14 only, Line 511).
Return trains are on xx.48 from Rye and xx.38 (to
ChX) and xx.58 (to STP) from Folkestone Central.
Buy a Rye (Sussex) return.
This is a fascinating and most unusual walk, initially leading from the
historic Cinque Ports Town of Rye along the Rother River to Camber
Sands with its shallow and wide sandy beach lined by magnificent sand
dunes and with a selection of lunch stops. After lunch you follow the coast
along the beach or the seawall through the Lydd Firing Ranges (only open
for about 65 days a year, today is one of them) into the desolate, vast
expanse of shingle (one of the largest in Europe) that is the Dungeness
National Nature Reserve and then past the Dungeness Nuclear Power
Station. You pass a couple of lighthouses (old and new) and a few tea
options in Dungeness and then continue past Derek Jarman’s famed garden to The Pilot
Inn in Lydd-on-Sea, from where buses take you on to Folkestone Central or Ashford stations. Note: to shorten the exposure to the shingle do the walk
on days when low tide is around early afternoon (it is, at 14.08).
Walk Options:
A circular option from Camber back to Rye through grassy marsh land cuts out all shingly sections.
An alternative ending from Dungeness leads to Lydd through the shingly Denge Beach area and a large RSPB Reserve.
Lunch: The
Owl pub or The Rye Bay Bar & Grill in Camber (about 6.0 km), plus assorted
other options (check the webpage for more details).
Tea:
[Dungeness/Lydd-on-Sea] The End of the Line/Ales by the Rails café/pub or The Britannia Inn, 2.0 km from the end, or The Snack
Shack or The Pilot Inn at the walk’s end.
[Rye] Too numerous to list here, check the pdf.
[Lydd] The Dolphin or The
George Hotel.
For walk directions, map, height profile and gpx/kml
files click here. T=swc.154
4 comments:
As for the diversion for seawall works mentioned on the webpage: these may have finished by now in the walked area and the works may have moved on further upriver.
Update: the diversion for works on the River Rother Tidal Walls East is still in place, and the gpx for the diversion is accurate.
14 walkers down from London (including an overseas visitor) assembled outside Rye Station, joined by 1 from along the coast (Brighton). We got going through the town centre and along the diversion due to seawall works, only the middle part of which is mildly annoying (tarmac path to side of busy road). Upon reaching Camber Sands, we were greeted by a strong southwesterly wind, a choppy sea and red flags, indicating no safe swimming.
That put paid to any thoughts some had had of doing just that: going swimming. The group stretched out a bit along the wide beach and when the turnoff through the dunes to The Owl pub came, some were out of shouting distance (the wind!), so only 6 turned left while 9 walked on. Some time after we had ordered our drinks and meals, we were surprised to see 2 of those 9 entering the pub, 1 of them with lots of bleeding wounds and scratches on arms and legs. Turned out they had turned around to join us but had not checked text or gpx file for how to get through the dunes in a safe manner, cue a few hundred metres of wading through brambles and bushes. Tick tweezers and anti-bacterial wipes were produced to help the 'casualty'.
On after the long-ish break, we knew that we would have some shingle to negotiate towards the end, but for the first hour of the remainder of the walk we had the very pleasant distraction of loads of kite surfers (and some wind surfers) negotiating the strong winds, some taking off to 'fly' for extended stretches!
The tide was coming in now and we desperately clung on to the remaining narrow band of sand or sand plus shingle that was good to walk on, always accompanied by the infernal noise of the crashing waves and the foam they left behind, as well as plenty of razorbills lieing about. Then, finally, there was no alternative to walking along the shingle, but not for long.
Past the nuke plant, the one or other who had thought about walking the extension through more shingle to Lydd were talked out of it on account of having to face into the wind on that stretch.
So, all 8 of us made it to Lydd-on-Sea in time for the 17.14 to Ashford, which 5 took (meeting most of the non-lunchers at the bus stop), while 3 went into The Pilot Inn.
That wasn't a great decicion in hindsight, as the 17.49 to Folkestone by design misses the hourly fast train to St P (we hadn't checked that). That left us time for another pub stop, on the plus side. Home after 21.00. A long day out.
n=15 w=overcast-with-a-strong-wind-from-side-on
The non-lunchers walked up on to the embankment after the kite surfing area to be greeted by more vicious wind. Morale was low as rain hit us while we tried to find our way onto the firing range and find some shelter between the flood defence boulders to have something to eat.
We passed lots of rusty tanks as described in the directions, then eventually found the embankment path blocked by a thicket of brambles on which one of us unfortunately got badly scratched. But we located the gate on to the road down to the beach. I wa relieved to find there was a thin sandy band to walk along just by the water, and made good progress, now blown along by the strong wind. Others less confident about going so near the waves and ploighed through the shingle.
There were a few hundred yards of unavoidable shingle before the nuclear power station - it was interesting to walk round it in such close proximity. I enjoyed the last section though that was partly elation at having actually made it to Lydd! All 7 finished more or less together and just missed the 1614 bus, so we had plenty of time for refereshments at the Pilot before the 1714 and - for most - the very busy 1816 train back to London. Thanks for working out the opportunity to do this walk in viable conditions, albeit the wind made it a trial at times.
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