Medway Valley Walk: Maidstone to Tonbridge

I met a friend outside Maidstone train station, a little later than excepted due to transport problems, and spent some time buying some lunch as I had managed to leave mine at home, so it was a little later than planned when we eventually set off along the river. Todays walk was going to be a tale of bridges and locks as looking at the map we would be passing a lot of these features. Heading off along the river we saw and heard lots of teams of rowers, the noise was mainly coming from other people in boats either instructing them or shouting encouragement. We cross over the river to reach the route and heading out of Maidstone, going pack the remains of the castle and then along well maintain paths. There were a quite a few people walking along the river, it was a nice day and quite warm. It took a few kilometres to leave most of the houses of Maidstone behind. Once the houses were behind us there were still many house boats along the river, many of them seemed to be on permanent moorings as they had well maintained (or not maintained) garden plots alongside the boats.

At East Farleigh we reached the first of many locks that were to be a feature of the day. There was also a medieval bridge built in the 14 century and said to be the “probably the finest medieval bridge in the south of England”. It was hard to get a decent picture of it as there were lots of boats around here. We headed on along pleasantly wooded footpaths, there were quite a few people about, and a lot of them were paddle boarding or kayaking. It was a good day to be on the water, sunny and quite warm, it was good to see people making use of and enjoying the river.

After stopping and eating a bit of lunch beneath a tree, we headed on towards Teston Bridge Loch and headed on through Teston Bridge Country Park. The route crossed over to the other side of the river but as I was not keeping an eye on the map, we missed the turning and continued on the North side along the tow path, which was not a problem as we met up with the correct path at the next bridge near Wateringbury Station.

We headed on past some river side lodgings, with the railway to our right but after a little while we left the houses behind and the people on the river lessened so the day felt a little less busy. After a few kilometres we reach another lock, near Yalding Station, were we headed along the road for a bit, passing a field of llamas and another medieval looking stone bridge before heading off along the river again. We stopped to have a cup of tea at a large busy cafe, before heading on, the river was slow and there were very few people about just a few using canoes or paddle boards. We passed though a disused lock and after passing under a large road near the village of East Peckham we continued on for a few kilometres before stopping at another lock to finish my flask of coffee and have something to eat. Sometime before reaching this lock we had walked through what appeared to be a massive camping round, one that could probably accommodate many thousands of people, though there were only 2 or 3 tents in evidence. We were a little perplexed as to why there was such a large campsite at this place as there didn’t seem to be much around here or much need for it. After finishing the walk I checked on the internet and it seemed that the massive campsite was part of a company called The Hop Farm which hosts large festivals and events.

The day has got colder and cloudy with occasional drizzle, but the walking was better than before with no building and more of an out of town feel, whereas before we’d often been next to or near various habitations. There were still a few kilometres to go to get to Tonbridge where the walk would finish, the rest of the walk was peaceful and we hardly saw anyone, just walking though a succession of locks. As we neared the end we started to see the odd person or couple or walking a dog or two, and suddenly we started to see the buildings that marked the outskirts of Tonbridge. From there is was short walk to the end of the walk which like the start of it features a bridge, and also a castle as the remains Tonbridge castle could be seen. We didn’t hang about but headed to the train station were we waited for the throughly disorganised rail dreaded and dreadful bus replacement service.