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. Not to mention the fact I’m writing this up nearly a year after I actually did the walk!
We’re now picking up the tale in April of 2025. I’d finished the previous section at Dunton Green, but to resume I repeated the trick I’d pulled on the previous section, and got a train to Otford instead – around 3km earlier down the trail than I needed. 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 think secretly it was also to give myself the longest possible walk to use some of my marathon fitness.
I arrived in Otford, luckily before the excellent cafe opened, thereby removing temptation. So onwards through the village, and up and over the railway to the point where I’d left the trail last time. A bit of a road walk took me to the crossing of the M25.
A bit more road before I then had to climb up through fields to join the ridge, where I found a bench looking back down over the Medway valley, a good place for a pause to swig some coffee and devour a cereal bar.
Reaching the top of the escarpment near Knockholt, I then spent a while skirting woods and enjoying the bluebells. Easily the best part of the day’s walk.
I put in a bit more distance to stop for lunch at the Coccolith, a dry stone wall homage to ancient creatures that would have formed part of the chalk.
After the morning’s highlight of the bluebells – and there was a lot of them, possibly the most I’ve ever seen in one walk – the afternoon started to drag a bit. A succession of paths at the top of grassy downs, or at the foot eventually got a bit samey.
An unexpected (but not surprising) highlight was crossing the Greenwich meridian.
And then as my feet started to really drag, there were more bluebells.
I forced myself to keep going as any cutting short of the walk involved quite a long walk out to a station, and I might as well make that distance along the trail. I’d hoped to make Merstham, and so pushed on for that.
I was out on my feet by the time I got there, nearly 34km of distance and over 700m of ascent covered during the day’s walk.
