9.42 train from Victoria (9.52 Denmark Hill, 10.05 Bromley South) to Meopham, arriving 10.29. If you miss this, the 10.10 from Victoria gets to Meopham at 10.43, so only 14 minutes later.
Buy a day return to Sole Street to give you the option of finishing there, or to Meopham if you definitely intend to finish at that station. If you want to walk into Rochester, buy a day return to there.
L=swc.173
I was looking for a walk that might feature some poppies and flowery meadows. Luddesdown Vineyard, passed towards the end of this walk, has often been good for the latter (though obviously I can't guarantee there will be some this year...), while Ranscombe Farm, which is partly traversed during the afternoon of this walk, is the flagship reserve of the charity Plantlife and usually good for wildflower displays. There are two optional extensions of 1.2 and 2.4 miles to take in more of the reserve. It also has good downland views.
Another option is to finish the walk by walking the Medway (motorway) bridge into Rochester. This was the original ending of this walk but no one ever seemed to do it, so it is now an option. If you are lucky a Eurostar train might whizz by at 186mph across the adjacent rail bridge. Once in Rochester you can enjoy lots of history and Dickensian vibes.
Lunch is one of three pubs in Cobham. For end of walk drinks, the quirky Cock Inn in Henley Street is a popular option (they have in the past refused to do tea, however). Otherwise both Meopham and Sole Street have pubs by the station. Sole Street gives you a shorter ending and is a slightly more romantic place to finish than Meopham, but trains from there are only hourly.
Trains back are at 16 and 35 past from Meopham, 32 past from Sole Street. Multiple trains per hour back from Rochester, but note that the ones to St Pancras require a supplement.
#2026-06-06T09:42
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I guess many were put off today by the weather forecast, so it would be nice to be able to report that soon after the start of the walk the rain stopped and the sun came out. Actually that is exactly what did happen. But soon after lunch it started to rain again - fairly lightly but relentlessly and for the rest of the walk. So w=a-bit-of-sun-but-mostly-wet.
There were six of us on the train, but one decamped at Swanley, pleading a pulled muscle (we believe you…). So five got off at Meopham, where we were met by a car driver. One other, having at first had cold feet but later repenting, got the 10.10 train and caught up with us at lunch. So n=7 in all.
The map of the morning route for this walk looks like the random scribbling of a child, but we religiously followed its meanderings, even when it made us walk round a hill to climb up it from behind. (Why?). Our reward in the community nature area (amid discussions of if there was such a thing as community…) was vast acreages of white oxeye daisy and yellow rough hawksbeard, punctuated by pockets of purple vetch. Since this coincided with the sunshine, it was all very nice.
In Cobham two had sandwiches in the churchyard. They came into the pub say hi and bye afterwards and then disappeared from this history. The remaining five of us went to the Leather Bottle, which was deceptively empty when we arrived but soon filled with screaming kiddies. I thought the food was deeply unexceptional, but it filled a hole. Worse things happen at sea…
In the afternoon there were noises about shortcutting a whole chunk of the route. Troops had to be dispatched to quash this rebellion. Shortly after this the rain restarted, however, and that put paid to any thoughts of doing extensions, let alone walking across motorway bridges into Rochester. Instead we stuck to the main route as the rain lashed down. I have never been on the Scotland trip but I imagine this is what it must be like.
It was a pity, as florally the afternoon matched the morning, at least once we got out of the woods. The downs were covered in oxeye daisies and all sorts, there was the most intense meadow of rough hawksbeard I have ever seen, and every row of the vast Luddesdown vineyard was awash with poppies.
At Henley Street we skipped both the pub and the walk into Meopham, heading straight for Sole Street across a vast field of wheat that was looking much happier than it would have done a week ago. Booming party noises emanated from the direction of the Railway Inn, but they turned out to be not from the pub but from some kind of motorcycle event next door. We had half an hour for drinks/tea and partial drying out before catching the 16.32.
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