One of my To Dos this year is to finish my re-walk of the North Downs Way. I originally walked it between 2006 and 2016, but it was very sporadic: 4 sections in 2006, 5 in 2011 and the final 4 in 2016. Given how long it took, after becoming an Ambassador for the trail in 2021, I thought it was only right that I re-walk it, given that it had been 15 years since I’d walked certain parts of it.
So in the summer of 2022, I set about it, deciding to this time walk it in reverse (so from east to west). That year I got as far as Halling, before I ran out of year. It’s then been a sporadic effort as and when I get time and have the inclination to inch progress further west.
I’m now firmly in the zone where there are blog posts missing from my original walk of the North Downs Way, so I’m making an effort to fill in the gaps.
We’re now picking up the tale in October of 2023. I’d finished the previous section at Halling, but to resume I stopped one station short of Halling on the train, and alighted at Cuxton, to pick it up there. I’m not sure why, but think it’s simply to pace the walk so that I fell into an end point close to a station rather than in a big gap between stations.
I took the route up Church Hill that I’ve taken a couple of times before, giving quick access to the ridge, rather than faff around doing a big loop through the Ranscombe estate and Bush Valley – after all I did that bit on the previous walk.
So it wasn’t long before I found myself on the familiar paths along the edge of the escarpment, winding through forest.
This is most definitely the part of the North Downs Way, and indeed of the whole North Downs, that I know best, so it was pleasant to walk along here knowing exactly where I was and with no pressure to need to navigate. I could just concentrate on enjoying the walk along a favourite path.
After a little while I came to “Slug Meadow”, named for a previous visit where I found where I was resting covered in slugs. This was off to the right, an area now overgrown with long grasses.
The path turned to head south past Holly Hill and thence down to the foot of the scarp slope. A pleasant meander along a chalky path, until meeting the junction with the Wealdway.
Here, the North Downs way heads back up onto the ridge itself, and I found myself in Trosley Country Park – still woodland like earlier, but now with much wider paths, and more people out.
At the western end of the park, is a cafe, and so I ducked in for coffee and cake.
Then a descent back to the foot of the Downs and a more tedious section of following the ancient Pilgrim’s way along a trackway. I’d much rather be up on the ridge in the trees.
Eventually, though, the path climbed steeply up through a field, and I sat down for lunch at the top of the sloping field, in the same spot we’d sat for lunch on one of the Ambassadors training walks.
After lunch, I very much wanted to get the walk done, so there’s less photos, and in any case it’s things I’ve photographed enough times in the past, that i didn’t feel the need to do it again.
Twisting along paths at the edge of farmland brought me to Otford Manor and shortly thereafter, Otford Mount. Another location I fondly remembered from the Ambassador training, as this was where it had been my turn to lead the group for a while.
Soon I’d descended to Otford itself, where I had a decision to make, and this was best done over a cup of tea and a slice of cake. I could stop here early, but this would make for an awkward slicing up of the remaining trail, so I forced myself to push on for Dunton Green, where the trains were a little more convenient as they could drop me at London Bridge.
This involves a trudge through the very long village of Otford, before then climbing up to cross the railway, a route shared with the Darent Valley Path. I got to the edge of Dunton Green and decided to stop, walking down the A224 to the station and a train home.
