Faversham to Conyer – 1st June 2019

Faversham Creek – A taste of the Thames

Today did not quite work out the way we had planned it.  The big idea was to cycle from Margate to Faversham on what promises to be the hottest day of the year so far.

Being unusually well organised yesterday, I managed to fit the bicycle rack to the car and load the bikes onto it.  One small issue did arise – Betty had put her bike lock onto her bike.  Alas, instead of asking Betty for the key, I just picked up the whole bike and put it onto the rack, fully locked and thought no more about it.

So here we now are at Faversham, parked close to the station and rather pleased with ourselves that we are able to avoid car park charges.  All we have to do is unload the bikes and catch the next train to Margate, prior to cycling the 28 miles along the coast back to Faversham.  I go to the back of the car and lift off Betty’s bike.

“Shit!  Oh shit” Says Betty.  I look to see what she is so upset about.  She is pointing at the wheel of her bike, which is securely locked to the bike frame.

“Shit” I repeat after her.

“W**k, f**k, b*****ks, shit, f**k, f**k” I add – but I feel no happier.

Without needing to ask her, I just know that she does not have the key to her bike lock.  No key means the bike lock prevents the wheel rotating.  A non-rotating wheel is incapable of propelling her the 28 miles from Margate to Faversham.  We are no-longer cycling anywhere.

“We could find a lock-smith to saw it off” Says Betty hopefully.

“Sod that”  I say, knowing full well that I have no intention of finding a lock-smith, telling him our ridiculous story, only to have a police constable turn up just in case we are a couple of bike thieves.

Then I regress some 60 odd years to childhood.  I stick out my bottom lip and petulantly declare “I want to go home”.

I can see that Betty is having trouble keeping her face straight, but she makes a very good job of being diplomatic. 

“Let’s look round Faversham first.  Have a coffee.” She gently soothes.

Faversham Town Hall is the centre-piece of the town’s Market Day

It is all that is needed.  I have gathered myself and am thinking logically. We discuss the options like grown-ups and come to the conclusion that we can walk some of the coast path from Faversham westward, perhaps to Sittingbourne.

Normal service is resumed as we tog up for walking instead of cycling.  We may have been a bit dim with the bikes, but somehow we have brought all we need for a long walk – boots, back-pack, water.  But no sun-hat for Betty.  No problem there, we’ll just buy one in Faversham.

Faversham is a charming little town.  All Georgian and Victorian architecture preserved from its hey-day as an important port on the Thames.  As we approach the town centre, people are thronging everywhere.  I can hear a drum beat in the distance and the squeal of a squeeze box.  Morris men are dancing in the street, smacking wooden sticks dangerously close to each other’s heads.  It is all very charmingly English.

Morris-men peform outside Faversham Town Hall

As we pass the ancient timber framed town hall, the pavements are littered with market stalls.  Unlike your normal market, these are all purveyors of things you don’t necessarily need for daily life, such as antiques and bric-a-brac, artisanal beers, delicatessens and bright fabrics.  Faversham has a look of Camden Market to it.  Cafe tables spill out onto the pavements, their customers chatting away and looking for all the world as though they are on the Champs Elysée.

I am reminded that we need coffee and we settle on having one at the Creek Creative Cafe.  I ask the girls behind the counter where one might buy a sun hat and they are very helpful with their suggestions.  We order drinks and rather greedily request a scone, jam and cream.   It is all very civilised, with our earlier distress quite forgotten.

Coffee finished, Betty heads up the road to buy a hat and returns instead with a length of bright orange gingham.  In a flash she has fashioned it into something between a headscarf and a turban.  She looks like she should be selling mangoes and pineapples, but does not look at all out of place amongst the razzmatazz of Faversham.

The ‘mango-seller’ decked out with her turban in Faversham

We make our way over the bridge, to the far side of Faversham Creek, where the blazing sun demands that we liberally spray our skin with factor 50.  Away from the town a pleasant breeze accompanies us, as we stop and watch a couple of ‘old boys’ manoeuvring a beautifully varnished Thames barge.  We exchange banter with the chap on the bow end, whilst the other carefully positions the tiller, the size of a barn door, in order to execute a perfect 180 degree turn in a waterway that is only a few feet wider than the 100-odd foot length of the barge itself.   

Our chatty friend in the bows tells us that they are preparing for a gathering on the Blackwater, the other side of the Thames estuary.  I am envious of them, being able to move across the Thames Estuary in a matter of a few hours, driven only by the breeze, whilst it will take us several days of puffing and sweating to arrive at the same place on foot.  But we know walking has its own pleasures, as we strike out along the bank listening to the sound of calling waders.

A Thames barge turns in Faversham Creek.

and Iron Wharf where I launched Jenny Wren 20 years ago.

Soon we are level with Iron Wharf and its expansive area of stored boats.  20 years earlier I lived here on my narrowboat Jenny Wren for 3 months.  She rested on wooden sleepers in the yard, as I worked on painting her below the waterline, in anticipation of taking her to a mooring at Tonbridge, up the River Medway.  Living alone, with just a radio for entertainment, was a simple existence that is revived whenever I hear one of the pop tunes of the time – Jamiroquai’s Canned Heat, or That don’t Impress me Much, by Shania Twain.  I was not alone, with several other boat owners busily building or restoring boats in the yard.  One was a year into a two year project, building a concrete yacht he intended sailing to the Far East.  A tad ambitious for me, with cruising 13 tons of steel on a river or canal being the limit of my nautical ambitions.

Then again, that is not entirely true.  We are actually at the very place where I literally ‘pushed out the boat’ and went to sea.  You see when Jenny Wren, was put into the water at Iron Wharf, it was into the murky salt waters of Faversham Creek.  These tidal waters lead into The Swale, a stretch of the tidal Thames Estuary between The Isle of Sheppey and the Kent Coast.  So I did once ‘run off to sea’, albeit in sheltered tidal waters.  I even spent a night at sea, moored at Queenborough, on Sheppey, before scuttling up the Medway to the security of non-tidal waters above Allington Lock.

But my nautical ambitions, such as they were, are well behind me now.  My feet today are firmly planted on terra firma, as we proceed along the west bank of Faversham Creek.  Ahead of us is a burned-out hulk.  It is a mangled collection of metal girders that have the vague appearance of a boat.  I wonder if it was moored here and caught fire, or was it towed from another location in its current state.  Either way it illustrates how susceptible boats are to the risks of fire, despite all this water to hand.

As we stride out towards the sea, a group of canoeists can be seen ahead of us, their white paddles glinting in the sunlight.  The full sun is beating down upon us and we are thankful for the cool breeze that blows into our faces. 

Sea walls on the Kent and Essex coasts have a distinctive assemblage of plants and animals.  One of these is salsify, a member of the daisy family, which like its cousin Goat’s beard, goes to bed at noon.   Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon is the alternative name for Goat’s-beard, describing how the sepals close up around the petals, closing as the mid-day sun threatens to evaporate unacceptable quantities of water from the open flower.    

At the seaward end of Faversham Creek we are in turn forced down Oare Creek, which enters it here.  We look enviously at the patrons of The Shipwright Arms, sipping their beer in the shade, or spilling out onto the sea wall to soak up the sun.  No such respite for us though as we turn up Oare Creek to make the mile and a half detour it forces upon us.  Perhaps we could hitch a lift with our canoeist friends?

A large, black bird wings its way past us.  It’s a cormorant.  These rather ungainly birds always look like they are carrying a bit of extra weight.  They sit low in the water, as though they had ignored my mothers instructions not to eat just before you go swimming.  Once airborne, they appear to need to flap their wings continuously.  Our passing cormorant demonstrates why, as it briefly attempts a glide.  Immediately, it’s progress stalls and follows a downward trajectory.  Thinking better of this strategy, it recommences its flapping, as it heads out to sea.

 Poor-man’s Asparagus (centre) amongst Sea Aster 

Jack-go-to-bed-at-noon or Goat’s-beard  

Oare Creek is typical of many on the East coast, dominated by the massed ranks of pleasure craft moored on the near bank, with an infill of salt marsh plants such as Poor-Man’s-Asparagus and Sea Aster.  The first of these makes for a nice salty addition to a salad.  On a recent visit to Dieppe I found the leaves of the latter on sale in fish markets, being the preferred accompanying vegetable  with fish.  We also came across a larger on sale in Crotoy, which was flavoured with the leaves of the plant.  Very pleasant it was too.  One thing is certain, there is no shortage of forage food around a salt marsh.

As we tread further inland, the pleasant sea breeze disappears and the walking becomes much sweatier.  Betty has to rearrange her head-scarf creation several times, as though to prove that even a walk on a salt marsh can provide an opportunity for an experimental fashion show.

At Oare village we cross a small bridge and return along the opposite bank towards Oare Marshes Nature Reserve.  As we approach the reserve, a strange untraceable grunting noise comes up from a wet ditch.  A little later we encounter the same noise.  As I attempt to creep-up upon its source, it suddenly stops.  A couple of steps further and something leaps into the water from the marginal vegetation.  It is a Marsh Frog, a native of Hungary which was released into the local marshes in the 1930s.  It has since spread throughout the country and gives cause for concern, since it probably competes with the native frog and carries diseases that could impact upon the native frog population.  

The Marsh Frog identified, we continue our journey to Oare Marshes, where we elect to investigate one of the bird hides.  Betty is still wearing her cycling shorts, complete with gel pad on the crutch.  These are fine for cycling, but since the debacle with the bike lock, they have become something of a liability.  She complains that it feels as though she is wearing a nappy, but even worse, the gel padding and the black colour of her shorts threaten to overheat her nether regions.  The hope is that she can rip them off in the bird hide and replace them with more suitable apparel.  Alas a couple of bird-watchers are already encamped, so any remedial work will have to be postponed.

As we gaze out of the bird hide, we get into light conversation with our fellow occupants.  Betty enviously notices a couple of cows in the middle of a lake, taking the opportunity to cool down from the blistering sun.  Beyond the cows, we notice people walking and we ask our friends if there is public access to the reserve from Faversham Creek.  They confirm there is.  It seems we have taken a wrong turn and need to retrace our steps back to the sea wall.

Having corrected our error of navigation, we continue along the sea wall to where Faversham Creek opens out into the Swale.  I recall my single-handed narrowboat journey of 20 years earlier, when on reaching this point, I turned to port and made my way upstream through the Swale channel. 

However, I still recall looking to Starboard, where the ever widening Thames Estuary merged with the choppy waters of the North Sea.  The prospect of a wrong turn here still gives me sweaty palms as I consider the vastness of the open sea compared to the security of the sheltered waters upstream.

The Swale channel with Isle of Sheppey (left) and East Kent coast (right – distance)

The Swale is as calm today as it was back in 1999.  As we stride out along the sea wall and beyond the naturalists gathered around Oare Marshes Visitor Centre, the world starts to become a much quieter place.  The Kentish marshes rarely attract significant numbers of walkers, other than at points such as Oare Marshes.  Just the sound of the occasional oyster catcher and a distant voice, calling their dog back, carries on the wind.

Suddenly a large black Dobermann appears from out of nowhere. 

Its owner shouts “She won’t hurt you” –  I suspect more in hope, than belief.  

Fortunately the dog is not the least bit interested in us, as it sniffs the ground intent upon pursuit of a countryside smell.  It is probably a town dog that rarely gets out.  Now it is running around like an addict looking for his next line of coke.  Shout as its owner may, it has only one thing on its mind –  probably a rabbit or a fox.  But that is the lure of the countryside,  for those of us who just can’t get enough of it.  Dogs and humans both.

We march on at a quicker pace, just in case the Dobermann gets a hankering for the smell of human flesh, instead of fox. Even half a mile away we can still hear the forlorn shouts of its owner imploring the dog’s return.  The dog-human relationship used to be a symbiotic one, with both deriving practical benefits from the other.  Today the relationship is often closer to parasitism, with the dog getting free board and lodgings, but apparently only giving grief in return.

At long last we are sufficiently far from dogs and the general public for Betty to finally relieve the burning sensation in her nether regions.  The deed is done in a matter of seconds, with a mercifully chilled Betty emerging from the bushes adjacent to the sea wall.

The state of the sea walls along the Thames Estuary are an important component of the Climate Change debate.  There are still many who challenge the veracity of climate change and man’s contribution towards it.  Be that as it may, it makes sense to take precautions, whatever the truth of the matter.  The increased utilisation of the Thames Barrage is evidence that the Thames Estuary is under much greater threat from flooding than it was 100 years earlier.

The building of the sea walls a couple of centuries ago probably made good sense at the time, bringing vast areas of what was unproductive salt marsh into cultivation.  Unproductive is a somewhat inappropriate term when applied to salt marsh and mud flats, since they provide all sorts of edible plants and animals, including sea aster, sea beet, poor-man’s-asparagus, oysters, cockles, water fowl, fish and even the lugworms, so cherished as bait by fishermen.

As the average sea levels in the estuary rise, so what is left of the salt marsh is gradually being pinched out between the sea and the sea wall.  In places along our walk, it is possible to see that the salt marsh has disappeared completely, leaving the sea wall itself now the subject of erosion.  Inevitably the sea will break through the sea wall and claim back its lost kingdom beyond.  Ever since before the days of Canute, we have been aware of the power of the sea.  We now have to decide on whether to accept the cost of repairing the walls, or to let nature take its course.

The sea-wall protects the land from the sea. 

 Salt marsh is being eroded by wave action

As I am contemplating one pressing environmental issue, another one presents itself.  It is the first cuckoo I have heard this year.  In fact I don’t recall hearing one at all last year.  There are mixed opinions about this intriguing parasitic bird.  Many don’t like the fact that it lays its eggs in the temporarily vacated nests of smaller birds such as reed warbler and dunnock, leaving them to foster the cuckoo offspring.  The fact that the oversized cuckoo chick commits fratricide on its host’s own offspring, makes it even less highly regarded in some circles.

The diminishing presence of the cuckoo is yet another indicator of how plagues of humans and their environment-exhausting habits are threatening the very existence of life on this tiny blue disc, floating in space.  So what is it that is causing declining cuckoo numbers?  Is it habitat loss due to our changing climate, or perhaps due to man’s agricultural efficiency; is it direct persecution by man? Many think it is something as simple as the cuckoos arriving too late in the season to lay their eggs in the nests of smaller birds.  With the spring arriving slightly earlier each year, insects appear earlier too.  This favours those smaller birds which are fortunate enough to arrive early in the season, or which now even remain throughout the milder UK winters.  With the smaller birds now laying their eggs earlier, it is as though the train timetables have been brought forward and the poor old cuckoo is left standing on the platform, as its train disappears off down the line without it.  

I am working with a map published in 1999, so am a little concerned that the coast path may have been moved over the ensuing 20 years.  As we approach Conyer Creek I spot a young couple and their three small children emerging from a side path, via a kissing gate.  This apparent splitting of the route causes me some consternation as to which path is the correct one.  Alas, no waymark signage is to be found to confirm which I should take.

The obvious solution is to ask the young couple.

“Have you come from Conyer Creek” I ask.

The man looks at me as though I’m from another planet.

“Yeah.  I fink we have” he responds.

This is not an encouraging start and I assume he is not a local.  Then I commit the cardinal sin of referring him to my Ordnance Survey map, pointing out where we wish to go.

He looks at it and I get the distinct impression he has never seen one before.

“Have you just come from here?” I say pointing at my proposed route across Conyer Creek.

“Yeah” he says

“Hmm,” I ponder, “They must have put some sort of a bridge across the creek then ” I share with him.

He says nothing, but continues to stare at the map.  If I had been his geography teacher at school I would have stamped “failed teacher” across my own forehead.  He obviously didn’t attend the map work classes, or the subject just went straight over his head.

“Oh well” I think to myself, “back to the drawing board”.

Nonplussed by the map, my friend points in the direction from which Betty and I have just walked.

“Wot’s over there then?” He asks.

“Oh, that leads to Oare Creek” I confide in him.

He shows not a flicker of recognition of the place name.  I wonder if he is in fact a real life Truman Burbank, of The Truman Show Fame and has just sailed across The Swale from the show’s set, relocated somewhere on the Isle of Sheppey.  It would be a great place to put it, considering that there are said to be people born on Sheppey who have never left the island.

As we part company, neither of us is any the wiser from the information exchange.  Foolishly I elect to go along the path they have just come down.  He on the other hand decides to go in the opposite direction to where we have just come from.  Which of us is the wiser man?  As it turns out, it is he.

We end up walking to Conyer Creek only to discover there is no bridge across and we have to make a detour via Conyer to continue our proposed walk to Sittingbourne.

Conyer Creek – there is no crossing it, other than walking to Conyer

On reaching Conyer village we arrive at The Ship, a pub that offers both beer and cider to the weary traveller.  The temptation is just too great and we enter this den of iniquity.  Once Betty has got her boots off and is supping her cool cider, she is like a dog with a bone.  She is not leaving it for anything.  She is rooted to the spot.  Immovable.  In reality so am I.  There is absolutely no way we are walking to Sittingbourne today.

I take out my mobile phone and discover that there is a train to Faversham from nearby Teynham, which goes in 30 minutes.  I share this information with the totally chilled out Betty, who looks totally disinterested in anything, other than her naked feet and her cider.

“Really?  So when is the next one?” She asks.

“Another hour” I reply.

“Sod it” She replies – at the idea of breaking the spell that the combination of rested feet and self-induced alcoholic stupor have cast over her.  The lady is definitely not for turning.

However, two minutes later the spell starts to wears off and she says “Let’s go then”

The mile and a half to Teynham are completed in record time, with us just arriving in time for the train back to Faversham.  Here we are reunited with our car (and bikes) and return Home, another small leg of our round Britain challenge completed.