First apologies for the delay in this post, just a lot of stuff going on and the muse has to strike me and unfortunately my muse tends to fade as I reenter the world :-). This day started out nice enough but there was and Orange Flag warning (think severe weather watch) for for rain and winds gusting to 60mph later in the day. So, we needed to get cracking.
Our first stop of the morning was just up the hill from our lodgings at St. Mary’s Church to collect another passport stamp.
You run into a lot of quirky things on a trek. Here, where the passport stamp was supposed to be was a note directing us to the pub next door to get our stamp. So, we headed over to the pub, the door was unlocked but not a soul in the place. We respectfully looked around but the stamp was no where obvious. We were about to leave when the pub owner showed up as he was finishing walking his dog (lots of dog owner’s and dog walkers in southern England). He gladly got the stamp out and we were on our way.
As I have mentioned earlier, getting out of town is always a challenge. This time we were held up by having to cross a rail line that had a train coming.
The train crossing gates are impossible to cross which is good since the trains through here are rolling at about 75mph. After the train passed we had our first truly dead end on the hike. I am a very good map reader, in fact I am teased that I have “Lou GPS” in my head but, for some reason, the map on this portion of the trail bore no resemblance to the landmarks I was seeing but we found a path and truly hit a dead end in the form of a river.
This is how bad it was; a guy across one of the streams on a gravel road in a pickup stopped, rolled down his window and said “you guys are really lost, I just locked the gate behind you, I’ll be back in a few minutes to let you out”. Fortunately, we didn’t have to wait as we found a gate and let ourselves out. We then struck out across another stream that wasn’t on the map and found another path after visiting with some folks who were, believe it or not, walking their dogs. The path merged with a cycling route and we were on our way.
The path went up a little higher than I had originally plan but it was sheltered somewhat from the periodic wind and rain which kept reminding us of what was coming.
As we came off the ridge it started to rain in earnest as a result there are not a lot of pictures.
After slogging through some open fields in a steady rain we finally got to the linear park that I knew was supposed to be in the area but had a hell of a time finding it. There we had a moment that reminded Rich and I of our hike along Hadrian’s Wall path. On Hadrian’s, we saw some school kids doing play battle on the river near Newcastle. Here it was a group learning how to kayak
As the rain continued to fall we moved from dirt to asphalt.
We finally got to the city gates of Canterbury
So, as you might remember by this point I have a bad heel on my right foot, a bad back (which has actually turned out to be a strained oblique muscle in my abdomen) and when we are roughly a quarter mile from the cathedral my left foot starts to cramp! Damn! So it’s raining, I’m hurting, and as we walk by the the hotel where we are going to be staying Rich asked “do you want to stop?” to which I replied “if I stop now I’m not going to be starting again, lets keep moving”…..I was not feeling very pilgrim like right at that moment, just putting foot in front of the other getting to the end. As we turned on the last street, which was closed to traffic as a pedestrian mall, I promise you I did not have a pleasant look on my face but I remember hearing as I passed a couple along the street the fellow said to the lady “now that’s a man on a mission” LOL!. It was worth it as we got to the cathedral and indicated that we were pilgrims the guard on hand dropped everything and lead us to the visitors center to have our passports stamped. Also, as a pilgrim we were allowed to tour the cathedral free of charge, I still hurt but that was pretty cool. So, the lead picture of this post is actually a couple of days later showing the scaffolding. Honestly, as I finished the trek and walked into the area where one could actually view the true scope of the cathedral structure I laughed out loud at all of the scaffolding because of the view I had of my first cathedral in Spain as I finished my first trek in 17 on the Camino.
This theme will continue in London but more on that later as I am beginning to think I am the scaffolding pilgrim lol.
After a soak in a warm tub at the hotel I started to feel more together and we attended evensong that evening in the Canterbury Cathedral, a truly moving event.
The choir was truly amazing and allowed one to truly be transported by their chants and responses. The wind and rain forecasted struck in earnest during the service to the point that one could hear it inside the cathedral. We received a pilgrim’s blessing that evening.
A beautiful service and a good dinner at the pub and the walking part of our trek was finished. But wait! There’s more. Posts on the cathedral itself, Dover castle, Rochester castle and London yet to come. Thanks for hanging with me.
Lou Hikes? 