or Walk 43 + 23 combination - Otford to Eynsford - 17.1km (10.6 miles)
Toughness: 5 out of 10
9.52 train from Victoria (10.09 Bromley South) to Otford, arriving 10.28
Walk directions: use the online version of Otford Circular (and Otford to Eynsford if you plan to do the longer afternoon: see below)
We have various walks around Otford and Eynsford these days, so the original Otford Circular walk from book one gets overlooked. A pity as it makes an excellent autumn outing, with hopefully some remaining dribs and drabs of autumn colour still left in its woods after this week's winds, and a couple of stiff climbs so you feel you have earned your chocolate cake
The walk suffers from the tiny problem that its traditional lunch pub, the isolated Fox & Hounds in Romney Street, closed earlier this year. But this is no great hardship as continuing on another 2 miles to the village Shoreham gives you access to no fewer than three possible lunch pubs. This makes a morning of 8.8km (5.5 miles). To get to the pubs, use the detour outlined in para 24 of the Otford Circular walk directions (first making a note of the location of the Darent Valley Path to your left if you plan to continue the circular route after lunch).
After lunch you have a choice:
- finish the Otford Circular walk. You will be enjoying chocolate cake in the Hospices of Hope tea room within the hour, as it is just 2.4km (1.5 miles) away.
- switch to the afternoon of Book 1, walk 23 Otford to Eynsford (paragraph 17 of the online directions) and follow that to its end. This is another 8.5km (5.3 miles), the last 3km/2 miles on a road that could easily be followed in the gathering gloom. A glance at a map also shows possible shortcuts towards the end of the walk. Tea would be either at the Lullingstone Vistor's Centre (closes 3.30pm, though) or at a pub in Eynsford.
Trains back from Otford are at 00 and 32 past to Victoria or 07 and 37 mins to Blackfriars. From Eynsford trains go at 13 and 43 past to Blackfriars. Changing at Bromley South on the Blackfriars trains gets you to Victoria 20 minutes earlier (37 mins v 57 mins)
4 comments:
There is a splendid tearoom by the bridge in Eynsford. Don't tell me it's closed already?!
Looking on Facebook and Tripadvisor, the Riverside Tearooms in Eynsford is open
N=12 on this walk, including one who missed a connection and caught us at lunch and one who took to long parking, failed to catch us up, returned to car and drove to lunch. W=Light-rain-the-morning-turning-heavier-after-1pm but none of the threatened wind. Bits of autumn colour left (and some green leaves still).
In the morning we got tangled with a meet-up group who seemed determined to match our pace exactly. (How annoying these chattering groups of walkers are!!!) They went to the first pub so we went to the King's Head: cheap food, big portions. After lunch seven of us followed the Darent Valley Way. Since this threatened to get us to Eynsford too early four of us stopped at Lullingstone Roman Villa - v interesting. We just got to the Eynsford tea rooms in time (early closing!) and got the 16.43 train.
to=too in previous comment!
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