Backpacking on the North Downs Way

NORTH DOWNS WAY

SOUTH EAST

WALK

WILDCAMP

Backpacking on the North Downs Way – Cuxton to Thurnham

Saturday 16 March 2019

Day One: Cuxton to Thurnham

Backpacking in the South East of England is not a particularly easy pastime especially if you want to walk for several days at a time and camp at the end of each day. There are very few campsites where you need them to be and most of them do not really cater for the one night backpacker anyway.

Wild camping in England and Wales, with the exception of some areas of Dartmoor, is illegal unless you have the permission of the landowner and all land is ‘owned’ by someone, even if it is the local authority or county council.

Even on a popular National Trail such as the North Downs Way, which passes through the south-east counties of Surrey and Kent, there are no areas for wild camping provided by the county councils for those who are walking the trail which is a little surprising considering that these two county councils, along with Natural England, provide the funding for the trail.

I suppose that it would be much easier to find Bed & Breakfast accommodation in most of the towns and villages along the trail but at an average price of £90 per night, it is simply too expensive and therefore not an option for most backpackers. If you wanted to thru-hike the North Downs Way then those that manage it recommend you allow twelve days so that’s going to cost you just over £1000.

On this occasion, I didn’t have twelve days I only had a weekend and following on from my accidental pilgrimage to Canterbury I was keen to discover more about the Pilgrims Way but I had no intention of spending £90 per night to do so.

Looking at the maps, I could see that a good deal of the Pilgrims Way now comprised of tarmac country lanes and the parts that did not were shared with, to a large extent at least, the North Downs Way and even where that was not the case the two routes were never far apart.

The last time I walked along the North Downs Way and the Pilgrims Way I had walked from Wye to Canterbury so I decided that this time I would finish at Wye and try to plan a route back from there that would take two days to walk and that had a campsite that I could stay at overnight that was not too far from the trail itself.

In the end, I decided that I would start at Cuxton because I could park there and catch the train back from Wye the following day so all I needed to do then was sort out the campsite.

There were only two campsites that were anywhere near the trail on my chosen section and one of those was only a few miles from the end. The other was almost perfectly located but after emailing them they advised me that, in spite of the dates advertised on their website, they would not be opening for another month or so.

So faced with the prospect of having to abandon my trip I decided to wild camp. Now, I am no stranger to wild camping and have wild camped on Dartmoor, where it is permitted, a great many times especially in my younger days when I lived nearby and I have also wild camped in the Brecon Beacons mountain range in South Wales, where it is illegal but usually tolerated, on a few occasions too.

But the North Downs Trail is not a route across a remote upland or mountainous region but a route through a narrow strip of land that weaves its way through some of the most densely populated areas in the country. The section I planned to walk, Cuxton to Wye, would take me between the M2 and M20 motorways and skirt around big towns such as Rochester, Chatham, Maidstone and Ashford which would make finding a spot to wild camp a bit of a challenge.

I decided early on in the process of looking for such a spot to stick to land that was owned by the county council rather than a private landowner because it seemed to me that a private landowner is more likely to living nearby, such as a farmer, and therefore more likely to be active in that area. I reasoned that the county council are unlikely to have employees working on their land and certainly not at night when I would be there and that even if I was spotted by a passer-by and the council informed, I would be long gone come Monday morning when the relevant office opened.

Going back to my maps and with a little help from Google, I found, what appeared to me anyway, to be the perfect spot. A large open area on the top of a hill with fine views across the nearby countryside but not overlooked by anyone. In my imagination, I was already seeing a pleasant sunset followed by the perfect sunrise.

In the days just before my little trip, it was already clear to me that the weather was going to be horrendous. The met office had been handing out yellow alerts like they were going out of fashion and were predicting rain and winds of up to 50 mph for the area I would be camping in. Checking the weather forecast several times a day, I hoped for signs of improvement right up until the morning of the first day of the walk. In the end, I decided that I would just have to go for it and if it didn’t work out then, what is the worst that could happen?

I left Cuxton at 11:30. I didn’t want to start too early because I didn’t want to arrive too early and then have to hang around for ages before pitching my tent. I was pretty certain that the area I had chosen to wild camp would be popular with dog walkers and that a man with a big rucksack just hanging around would look suspicious. It was already ridiculously windy and it took some effort to cross the Medway viaduct alongside the M2 motorway and HS1 railway line and I had barely walked a mile when the rain started and I had to stop at Nashenden and put on my waterproofs.

I had planned to stop at the Blue Bell Hill viewpoint for lunch but when I arrived it was just too windy to sit there and try to eat a cheese roll and boil some water for coffee on the stove so I decided to press on. At least the rain had stopped and I was eager to finally see Kit’s Coty which was just a little further along the trail.

Kit’s Coty, or Kit’s Coty House, is a chambered long barrow or ‘dolmen’ constructed circa 4000 BC during the Early Neolithic period and made from sarsen stones (a fine-grained, crystalline sandstone). I had heard about it several times but I had never been to see it until today. Getting to it, however, was proving tricky as the wind had brought down several trees along the narrow path that had to be negotiated. Fortunately, they were relatively small trees and I eventually reached the monument, took some photos and then continued on my way.

Lunch eventually happened behind the Petrol Station on the A229 where I managed to find a spot out of the wind. Had I walked just a little further then I would have found a much more agreeable lunch spot at the White Horse Stone.

The White Horse Stone is another sarsen megalith and is also believed to have been used as part of an early Neolithic chambered long barrow. The stone used to be called the Upper White Horse Stone because up until 1834 there was a Lower White Horse Stone three hundred metres west, roughly where the A229 dual carriageway is now, but was broken up for some unknown reason.

The surviving Upper White Horse Stone simply became known as the White Horse Stone and, to this day, is considered a sacred site by Folkish Heathens and Druids alike with some believing that the stone, along with the other Medway Megaliths, is connected to the ‘earth energies’ and rituals are said to be performed at the site each month. There is even a group called the Guardians of the White Horse Stone devoted to protecting the site.

I continued up into the woods where I found even more evidence of the destructive power of the wind. Trees of varying sizes lay splintered and broken on the leaf covered ground. Those still standing where howling in the wind as if in anguish. People often describe strong winds as an express train and I could see why. The noise was almost deafening. An unending continuous roar very similar to that of fast moving trains but at a slightly lower pitch above which the clatter of branch upon branch could be heard as if hundreds of children were playing nearby with wooden swords. So loud was the noise that I was completely unaware of a cyclist who had ridden up behind me until I heard what, to me, sounded like a faint cry and turned around to see him right behind me struggling to keep his balance.

I reached Detling at around 5 pm. The light was fading and I had calculated that it would be dark enough to pitch my tent around 6.30 pm so I was a little early. I walked slowly along the Pilgrims Way and, before long, was able to look up to the escarpment that I had chosen as my campsite. Detling Hill.

I started to slowly climb the path on the western side of the hill while keeping my eyes open for signs of people. Every metre climbed the wind seemed stronger and louder than before. The escarpment was south facing and the wind blowing in a northwesterly direction so I knew there would be little chance of any shelter from the wind. On the top of the hill, at 200 metres, there is a viewpoint which consists of a trig point and some information boards. I took an anemometer from my pack, turned to face into the wind and held it up. To the two dog walkers that were walking along a nearby path, I must have looked as if I was performing some sort of ancient ritual of my own. For the few minutes that I held the anemometer up, I measured a steady wind speed of 34 mph with gusts reaching 48 mph. “There is no way I am camping up here tonight,” I thought to myself.

Now I have experienced winds of up to 70 mph once or twice before and I have read the accounts of others who have survived nights in the mountains with winds far in excess of the 34 mph that I had just measured. But standing right there, at that moment, I just knew that it was too windy and too exposed.

I scouted around the area on the northern side of the viewpoint. The map showed this area as woods but it was newly planted and the trees barely five feet high and the whole area not more than 600 sqm.

It was now 6 pm and the light was almost gone. I needed to find somewhere soon or give up and try to find a way back to the car. Civilisation, after all, was not too far away. I could see from the map that the remains of a medieval castle were just a few hundred metres away, on the other side of a nearby lane. I had seen photos of the remains when I researched the area on Google so I knew that, although very little of the castle remained, there were at least some walls there. Hoping for some flat ground I head down the hill to the castle.

Thurnham Castle is a twelfth-century flint-built motte-and-bailey castle. Or, at least, it was. Very little of it was still standing by the time I got there but luckily one side of the bailey wall was. It wouldn’t shield me from all of the wind but it was certainly a big improvement. The only problem was that the only sheltered flat ground was just a few metres from the lane and I would be visible to anyone using the lane.

I found a spot out of sight and lit my stove for coffee. By the time I finished my coffee and a cheese roll I figured it was dark enough to pitch my tent. Using only the red beam from my headlamp I set about doing exactly that. It actually took much longer than I had expected to pitch in the dark. The dark green flysheet and the red straps, pegs and guy lines are not that easy to see under a red light and just as I thought I had finished I realised that I had put the fly on with the only door on the wrong side.

It is hard to explain the importance of being able to have a hot meal and drink when you are out in cold weather. At no point was I going to starve or at risk of hypothermia. It wasn’t even that cold at 7°C now that I was out of the wind and I had an extra layer that I wasn’t using other than as a pillow. But, physiologically, a hot meal and a hot drink give you a sense of wellbeing and satisfaction that just seem to help warm the body.

By 9 pm I was starting to nod off. Every now and then I would be woken up by a gust of wind hitting the tent, but otherwise, I slept pretty well.

The first of many fallen trees blocking the trail.

Quickly followed by the second fallen tree.

Lunch stop behind the Shell petrol station on the A229. Breathtaking!

The White Horse Stone. No sign of the guardians.

Westfield Wood. Strong winds made it difficult to hear.

79 Miles to Farham – 34 Miles to Canterbury

“Jade’s Crossing” to the other side of Detling – a small village split by the A249

16th Century house in Detling on the Pilgrims Way.

Pitching my tent in the dark at Thurnham Castle.

At last! Boots off and the stove on for coffee and noodles!

The Route

Distance : 14 Miles

I parked in Station Road, Cuxton and walked for two days until I reached Wye where I caught the train back to Cuxton via Paddock Wood and I wild camped above the village of Thurnham. The first section was 14 miles long and if you wanted to make this a day walk then you could walk through either Thurnham or Detling in order to catch the train from Bearsted back to Cuxton. The route is a mixture of different trail types but, being Kent, there is a lot of sticky mud. A lot!

Click HERE for a GPX file of the route.

David Welch – View Profile

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