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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Saturday 1 October 2016

Saturday Second Walk - Fine views on the North Downs Way

SWC Walk 24 - Sandling to Wye
Length: 20.5km (12.8 miles)
Toughness: 6 out of 10

9.40 train from Charing Cross (9.43 Waterloo East, 9.49 London Bridge) to Sandling, arriving 11.13

OR

10.08 Southeastern High Speed train from St Pancras International to Ashford, arriving 10.46, to connect with the above train departing 11.02.

Buy a day return to Sandling. This should be accepted between Wye and Ashford, but you may be liable to pay for this short hop.

For walk directions click here.

I had a request for this walk, which had a Sunday outing earlier in the year but has not had a Saturday outing for some time, I think. It is a simple walk along a very lovely stretch of the North Downs Way, - more like the South Downs here, with fine views for much of the walk (the exception being one section in the afternoon when you are away from the escarpment for a while).

Once you climb up onto the downs from Sandling you are following the North Downs Way, so you might be tempted to rely on waymarking. But in critical places it is not very clear and in at least one place open access now enables you to take a simpler route than the NDW - hence the walk directions in the link above.

Lunch is at the Tiger Inn in Stowting, a lovely pub that can be quite popular (hopefully less so now that summer is over). An equally nice alternative, which requires a bit of extra road walking is the Five Bells in Braborne. With either one it might be worth ringing to book a table when setting off on the walk, though both have outside seating too if it is fine.

Tea in Wye basically comes down to the Tickled Trout pub, which does serve tea and sometimes even cakes, and has a wonderful location by the river. Even more wonderfully it is just across the bridge from the train station.

Trains back from Wye are at

- 21 past, direct to Victoria, but slow - 1 hr 48
- 54 past, direct to Charing Cross  - 1 hr 28

For both trains you can change at Ashford for St Pancras, the 54 having a slightly smaller waiting time there (13 mins versus 15 mins), both taking 1hr to London

1 comment:

Walker said...

N=8 on this walk. The gloomy weather forecast was only part right: we had w=two-very-heavy-showers-but-otherwise-lots-of-sun. The second shower was a rather magnificent hailstorm which produced wonderfully misty light effects on the valley below as it passed, also providing a good test for winter walking gear (which some items failed.....). But for the most part this was a fine day out on a fine downland ridge.

The forecast meant the Tiger Inn in Stowting was not as busy as it might have been, though it was still far from empty. It is always a pleasure to eat at this friendly pub. In the afternoon we met two young Swedes who had started their walk at 7.30 am in Dover, which put us in our place. In Wye we optimistically sat in the garden as dusk fell, but were forced inside by the evening chill after one drink. Autumn is here!