Length: 17½ km (10.9 miles) to Wateringbury, or 20¼ km (12.6 miles) if you carry on to Yalding. Toughness: 3/10
09:32 Ramsgate train from Victoria, changing at Paddock Wood (arr 10:24, dep 10:33) for the Strood train, arriving Maidstone West at 10:54. Buy a return to Maidstone West.
Late Start Option: Take the train one hour later and get off at East Farleigh (the stop before Maidstone West) at 11:49. That cuts out the first 3¾ km (2.3 miles). I reckon the main group will have passed through along the riverbank about 10 minutes earlier and if you're lucky you might encounter some stragglers, but if not you won't be far behind.
Return trains are hourly at xx:09 from Wateringbury and xx:12 from Yalding, changing at Paddock Wood for Victoria.
This is one of the rather neglected options of the Wateringbury Circular walk. You might have to share the first part of the Medway Towpath with some Sunday cyclists, but these should thin out as you move away from Maidstone and the scenery becomes more rural.
The lunch pub on this variation is the “Country Pub & Dining” Horseshoes Inn on Dean Street. Picnickers might find it more pleasant to stop a little later in the churchyard opposite the Bull Inn at East Farleigh, where the route merges with the Circular Walk.
The route goes past East Farleigh station after 10¼ km (6.4 miles), giving you the option of dropping out there (trains at xx:03). The rest of the walk is along the Medway Valley to Wateringbury, which has a couple of cafés and a pub near the station. If the tea'n'cake has revived you there's the option of continuing along the attractive riverside path for an extra 40 minutes or so to the next station on the line, Yalding.
Please bring the directions from the L=swc.336.c page (if you're printing them from this page you can click c in the Walk Options list to show this route on the Walk Map and hide the directions for the other variations). #2026-10-18T10:55
1 comment:
A sunny morning tempted me out onto this attractive riverside ramble, but with a gloomy weather forecast for Kent I wasn't surprised to find myself doing a solo walk. Being unencumbered by fellow-walkers keen to do the whole shebang I decided to cut it short and go directly to Wateringbury. That was a wise move as the heavens opened just as I got there; my windscreen wipers had a good workout on the journey home. n=1 on a w=partly-sunny-heavy-rain-later day.
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