A new one

14th September 2014

    Dee came over to Hadlow at 6.40am bringing Maisie and we left in my car for Yalding and parked near Teapot Island by the canal. At this time, the canal was quiet and the River Medway was calm and the morning already warm. The Sun had risen with fiery splendour; there was no wind. We walked over the medieval Twyford Bridge, where the River Tiese joins the Medway and across the grassy Lees to the village, then over (15th C) Town Bridge across the River Beult. There was no sign of the tremendous flooding of last winter, but people here are always on their guard. After the Walnut Tree pub, a lovely old black and white timber framed house, we turned onto the Greensand Way going east, into woodland.
    Then we climbed up onto the Greensand Ridge leaving the rivers behind. The track is deeply cut with high hedges and must have been an old drover's way. We came to Fox Pitt farm and on the green, huge twisted Chestnut trees laden with their spiky husks, testified that there will be plentiful harvest this year. We skirted Quarry Wood and entered woodland to the east. A mistake made with the compass here, meant that we went east, not north east and came out onto North Folly(!) Road. We walked north, and, up Gallants Lane, Dee chose the narrow Vicarage Lane route to East Farley through pear orchards.
    Of course, we were up on the plateau, and East Farleigh is down on the Medway. The lane is steep going down and as we passed some cottages, Dee realised that we were at the place where she lived as a child. She remembered the house, number 7, her neighbours and the allotments behind; careering downhill on a home made cart. Forty years has passed since her family moved to Brenchley, but it has all remained almost unchanged and her memory fresh. In the village, we made for the 12th C St. Mary's Church to find a bench for breakfast. The view was over the river and on the banks were moored cabin cruisers, barges and allsorts, each side of the 14th C bridge. And on the other side of the valley, the red roofs of Barming crowding the side of the hill. Old friends of Dee are buried at St. Mary's, a stark reminder of our destiny.
    We left St. Mary's going down hill to the bridge and joined the Medway Valley Walk to follow the river west. Every 30 metres or so, among the trees and bushes, fishermen were failing to catch their prey despite the impressive array of special equipment. A couple of Jersey heifers were roaming free along there, so Maisie went back on the lead until we went over the bridge near West Farleigh. For hundreds of years, all along this stretch of the Medway, people have been standing on these bridges and looking into the water, just as I did.
    The path went uphill through Tutsham Hall Farm. There is an old oak on the bank by the lane so huge, that its roots had engulfed a stone wall the and canopy spread far and wide with all wildlife living there. The path from Tutsham Hall looks down onto the river and soon took us down to Wateringbury past the boat chandler to the waterside again. Walking on the riverside can be somewhat tedious, especially under the hot Sun, so the last 3 kilometres was hard work, but just beyond the weir and Hampstead lock near Yalding we popped into the caff by the canal for coffee before home.