I decided to adopt a different approach to my route planning from yesterday; although there was a shoreline path for some miles from Woolwich Arsenal, I would have had to cut inland upon reaching the River Darent. I decided therefore to try something different. There are a number of sites that can do route planning for you and because essentially most of today’s walk would be through suburbia I decided to go with what my https://www.plotaroute.com/myhome route gave me.
A thing I have noticed is that my OS Leisure 1:25000 maps are not that good when it comes to residential streets, in fact, you would be much better off with a London A-Z Streetmap. This meant I had to reprint my maps in a different format, one that would give me street names. At this lower scale I ended up with 17 printed A4 sheets, I should have bought an A-Z! Because I would be changing maps quite frequently, I did not use my map carrying case, but simply folded them up in my jacket pocket. As my automated route was a more direct route, it ended up some 5 miles shorter than my original planned route. However, although I had requested a “walking” route I still had to check that the route had footpaths or pavements. I was certainly intrigued by utilising this approach to route planning, as the situation of walking a complete section through suburbia would probably not materialise again.
I made a very early start, leaving my Basildon hotel and heading again to Tilbury Fort, where I parked my car. I then walked the short distance to the Tilbury landing stage to catch the 05:50 ferry and again was accompanied by the returning night shift from the Amazon warehouse. Again I walked along Gravesend High Street which was deserted being a Saturday morning. I caught the 06:29 train to Woolwich Arsenal. By 07:00 I was walking eastwards along Plumstead Road.
I continued along the mostly deserted streets for 3 or 4 miles before Plumstead Road became Bostall Hill, which also became an open greenspace with trees and parkland. But I was soon back in suburbia and passed from the London Borough of Greenwich into the London Borough of Bexley. I continued along further miles of residential streets before dropping down a hill into the town of Crayford. Here I popped into a Greggs to get myself a bacon/sausage bap and a coffee. Outside a retail park I sat down on a bench to eat my breakfast. The retail park was built on the site of the old Vickers factory which had a huge role in both World Wars. The bench which I sat on, was also occupied by two life-size statues of Alcock and Brown, who, in 1919 made the first successful flight across the Atlantic in a Vickers Vimy, built in the once nearby factory.
I set off through suburbia again and soon passed into the Borough of Dartford which meant I crossed over in to modern day Kent. By this time, I began to get a feeling of ennui from all this residential traipsing. What did change though was the appearance of hills; with the streets and roads now having more up and downs which coincided with the use of Chert and Flint nodules in boundary walls and the sight of Chalk in some cuttings.
I dropped down a fairly steep hill into Dartford and continued along the High Street which was hosting an open air market. I had actually walked along this street twice before when I came to watch my football team play Dartford. The high street continued up East Hill and I soon crossed over the A282 which was the southern extension of the Dartford Crossing. I continued along the A226 passing through Stone, Greenhithe and Swanscombe which all merged imperceptibly into each other. To the north I could now see industrial areas and the river itself. I crossed over the main line for Eurostar trains and could just make out Ebbsfleet International Station, where I had once caught a Eurostar train to Brussels. I passed the Ebbsfleet football ground, which I had also visited some years before and continued into Northfleet. For the first time today I diverted from planned route and took a cycle footpath that indicated that Gravesend was 1.75 miles away. I followed the footpath, which was poorly signposted and ended up by the river in a dead-end road full of fly-tipped rubbish! I managed to pick the footpath up again and made my way around a large construction site, which lead onto the wharfs and jetties of Gravesend.
The ferry back across to Tilbury ran every 30 minutes so I did not have long to wait. Quite a different walk which I doubt I would ever repeat, as I much prefer to plot my own route.
Distance today = 16 miles
Total distance = 5,839 miles
Walking the Coast of Great Britain 