Length: 12¼ km (7½ miles) to Yalding, 15 km (9¼ miles) extended to Wateringbury. Toughness: 1/10
10:40 Folkestone train from Charing Cross (Waterloo East 10:43, London Bridge 10:49, Orpington 11:05, etc), arriving Paddock Wood at 11:30. A return to Wateringbury works for both endings (and from London is the same fare as Yalding).
Trains back are hourly (Wateringbury xx:08, Yalding xx:12), changing at Tonbridge. You could also take a train in the opposite direction (Yalding xx:47, Wateringbury xx:51) and change at Strood, but you'd need a supplement for the HS1 to St Pancras.
This is an easy short walk in the Medway valley, with much of it being alongside the river. You'll get to Twyford Bridge soon after 1pm, with a choice of the “bistro-style café” on Teapot Island or the Boathouse across the river for a pub lunch. Afterwards I suggest doing the Short Walk (cutting out the outer loop to Hunton). This will get you back to the refreshment places at Twyford Bridge quite soon, with a final leg through a community orchard to Yalding station. However, if it's a nice day it's worth extending the walk along a pretty stretch of the river to Wateringbury.
You'll need to bring the directions from the L=swc.338.a page.
4 comments:
The Boathouse is glossy, vapid and has overpriced, and very ordinary, food.
The Ramblers Rest at Wateringbury Marina has home-made cakes and is handy for the station - as is the Railway pub.
It seems, on Trainline, there's a 10 minute change at Tonbridge in the morning also, to arrive Paddock Wood 10.40 rather than 10.30.
The omens were not propitious for this walk: dire weather warnings from the BBC were supplemented by posted comments about the awfulness of the lunch pub and a last-minute assertion that the outward train journey information was incorrect (it wasn't). For a few moments it didn't look as if any other walkers had alighted from the train, but eventually a few turned up from the other end of the platform and a band of n=6 set off on a w=cloudy day.
Arriving at Twyford Bridge on the stroke of 1pm, one or two looked wistfully at Teapot Island but went along with the majority decision to patronise the "glossy and vapid" Boathouse across the river. Rather surprisingly there was no problem getting an outside table. The menu had a good selection, our orders were taken promptly and although the food and drink took a little while to arrive, it was all fine and there were no complaints.
Those looking for a very short walk claimed to have felt a few spots of rain but we decided to press on with the short afternoon loop out to Cheveney Mill. At this point the walk author was startled to be recognised by the mill's owner, who turned out to be a workmate from the 1980s; a brief delay ensued as we exchanged gossip about other colleagues. More delights followed when we passed a large array of polytunnels, where a friendly greeting to the strawberry pickers resulted in them kindly passing over a punnet of fruit for us to enjoy.
A short tea break at Teapot Island and a leisurely stroll through the Community Orchard (sadly denuded of pickable apples) got us to Yalding station in good time for the 16:12, but our return journey was slightly marred by the knock-on effects of earlier signal failures and we had a 35-minute wait for a London train at Tonbridge. On a sunnier day some of us would have happily carried on to Wateringbury, but I think everyone was satisfied today with this easy 7½-miler.
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