Saturday Walk - Meopham Circular or to Rochester - a new route in a familiar area

Length: 19.5km (12.2 miles), with options from 10.6 miles to 13.8 miles. T=swc.173

9.42 (Gillingham-bound) train from Victoria (9.52 Denmark Hill, 10.05 Bromley South) to Meopham, arriving 10.28

A day return to Meopham is fine if you are planning on the full circular walk. If you might want to finish at Sole Street buy a day return to there, and Rochester ditto. To keep your options open buy a day return to Rochester.

For walk directions click here**, for GPX click here and for a map of the route click here.

** Not many people know this, but if you click on the blue subject headings in the walk directions, you get a summarised version, which is useful for using in conjunction with a map.

"Novelty, novelty, novelty!!" is the constant Saturday Walkers's cry, so here is a walk that nearly all of us have not done in its current form. I say "current form" because although it is a new walk, posted only once before, it is actually a reworking of the former Cuxton to Halling route.

The main walk here (12.1 miles) takes you from Meopham up onto a chalk ridge and then over the M2 motorway bridge (noisy, but with spectacular views) and on into historic Rochester (12.1 miles). But there are also two circular versions (12 miles and 13.8 miles) which loop back to Meopham through pretty territory that will be familiar to some of you from other Cuxton/Sole Street walks. On the way you pass close to Sole Street station: if you finish there, it saves you 1.4 miles, so 10.6 miles or 12.4 miles, depending on whether you did the extra loop of the circular walk.

I can't speak to the mud quotient on this walk: some of it may be on low-lying fields and it has been rainy this week... On the other hand some sections are on chalk downland which MAY be better drained. But bring appropriate footwear, gaiters, knee supports, trusses, trekking poles and whatever other accoutrements you find useful. Soon it will be spring and this kind of thing won't matter anymore.

Lunch is after 5 miles in Cobham, where there are three pubs - the somewhat over-touristed Leather Bottle (which makes too much of its slight Dickensian connections), the Darnley Arms and the Ship Inn: all three seem from their websites to be open normally. For tea options see the walk directions. 

Trains back from Meopham are at 16 and 35 past (the 16 past being faster, at 35 minutes, while the 35 takes 55 minutes, though you can change at Bromley South and cut that to 45 minutes)

From Sole Street there is just one hourly train at 32 past (the nearby Railway Inn should be open to shelter you while you wait).

From the shiny new railway station at Rochester (much closer to town than the old one...) trains go at 05, 23 and 38 past to Victoria, taking around 40 minutes. Slower (1 hour 15 minutes) Thameslink trains go to London Bridge at 12 and 42 past, carrying on to St Pancras etc. There is also a 29 minutes past Southeastern High Speed service to St Pancras, but you need to have pre-purchased a ticket with a high speed supplement for this and it offers zero time advantages over the Victoria ones.