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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.

Sunday 6 May 2018

Sunday Walk: Deal to Dover

Book 2 walk 30 (backwards)
17.2 km 10.7 miles  Difficulty: 3/10
The walk starts off along Deal beach with its unusual collection of wild and exotic plants. The nearer you get to Dover, the cliffier the walk gets. On the way you encounter Tudor castles, a lighthouse, and Exmoor ponies.
Trains:
The 9:37 Hi Speed from St Pancras International  (destination showing as St Pancras on Journey Planner) (Stratford Int 09:44, Ashford Int 10:15) arrives at Deal at 10:59.
Journey Planner routes you via St Pancras no matter what station you type in but you can get a slower, cheaper connection from Victoria. The  "cough" "ahem" 8:42 (Bromley South 8:59, Orpington, 9:07) to Dover Priory arrives Dover at 10:35 (platform 2) where you change onto the above train (platform 1, 10:41) to reach Deal. If you miss the connection, you're doing the walk the other way round! (You can also change at Ashford Int. arr. 10:04 dep. 10:15) Ask for a super off peak return to Deal and maybe throw in the words "avoiding St Pancras".
Hi Speed Trains return from Dover Priory at xx:49 and xx:59Slower ones to Victoria are at xx:05 and xx:59 (except 16:59). Get a return to Deal.
Lunch: First up, the Zetland Arms a pub on the beach 3 miles down from Deal. Later, in St Margaret's Bay, you have the Coastguard pub. St Margaret's Museum has a café and there's a tea kiosk on the beach.
The Bluebirds Tea Room has closed.
Tea: Mrs Knott's Tea-room at South Foreland lighthouse is open "the same times as the lighthouse" (closes 5-ish). The White Cliffs Visitor Centre, is open till 5. There are plenty of places in Dover itself, including a Wetherspoons, the Eight Bells.
Directions for this walk can be found here. You only need  pages 1-3 and 8-10. (The reverse directions start at paragraph 74).
Be aware that this walk is so close to France that your phone can switch to a French network and even adopt French time. If the wind's in the wrong direction, you might start talking in French.
T=2.30

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

Is it too late to join this walk for tomorrow?

Mr M Tiger said...

No you don't need to book. We don't have a booking system.
Check out our info for new "member"s on the FAQ page
https://www.walkingclub.org.uk/swc/index.shtml

Anonymous said...

Walk info, map and GPS link isn't working

Andrew said...

its is now :)

Mr M Tiger said...

N=8 on a w=hot-sunny day.
The bank holiday weekend is probably not the best time to schedule this walk. Packed trains both ways (though I think we all got seats) and heaving pubs. But none of that seemed to matter, it being such a glorious day. Vegetation between Deal and Walmer was mainly dull green stuff, not in full swing yet. There were bluebells though. (Spanish).
The Zetland Arms was 3 deep at the bar so we continued on to the Coastguard at St Margaret’s Bay. There was another long queue for the bar there and a 90 minute wait for food. But there are worse places to wait than in its garden, watching the sea. And the food, judging by the purrs of satisfaction, was good when it came.
At walk’s end, most found a pub “by the water”. I, who was lagging, found the Wetherspoons and a satisfactory half pint of cider (Hunt’s Wobbler). Most (we lost two along the way) reunited on the platform for the 17:49.