Day 34 Rochester to Eyhorne Street: Met with Kindness

It would have been an amazing view in sunshine...

For an OS map of today's walk click here.

Today we were met with kindness wherever we went—which we needed as we were facing one of our longest walks of the entire trip. As we headed out of Rochester, we moved over on the sidewalk to let a woman with a bag of groceries go past us, and she stopped and asked where we were walking. We said we were going to Canterbury, and she told us about some things to see there that she enjoyed. She said she would be with us in spirit on our walk, and kindly bid us farewell.

An Inventive and Appropriate Sign

On the long walk along Borstal Road out of Rochester, I began looking for a washroom, even though I knew there wouldn't be any en route. We bought sandwiches at a small corner store, and the nice man there mentioned that there might be a washroom in the co-op down the street. We walked a bit further and didn't see the co-op, so I poked my head in the door of a pharmacy and asked if the co-op was down the street. The answer was yes, and I tacked on the fact that I was looking for a washroom there. The woman at the pharmacy said that the co-op didn't have one, and there weren't any nearby. She asked if the situation was dire, which by this time it was, and she said she could escort me to the one upstairs. She had to escort me to the door because it was a pharmacy and they had to be secure about the drugs. She was very kind, and I was very grateful!

Detling Millennium Sign

Around 11:00 a.m. the rain started, mostly drizzle. Ken took a couple of routes different from the North Downs Way in order to decrease some of the ascents and descents, although we couldn't avoid one long and steep climb (though it was made a bit shorter by Ken's alternate route). Our lunch was eaten in short standing breaks. The path to Detling seemed endless, but we finally arrived. We walked to the bottom of the village to see the church, but it was locked. We walked back up to the Cock Horse Inn (a Cock horse was an extra horse added to a coach in order to help the other horses pull the coach up the hill). The rain had stopped by then, and we had a good rest at this pub.We figured we wouldn't want to go out to a pub for dinner that night after a long walk, so we ordered a BLT baguette to take away.

They don't make 'em like this in Canada!

We got going again and walked on Pilgrim's Way road for awhile. There was a fair bit of traffic, so we decided to take some footpaths across the fields rather than the road; the footpaths cut off some distance as well. But not all shortcuts turn out to be short! The first path was fine. The second path was through a bean field, and there wasn’t really a path where the right of way was indicated on the map. The third field was tall canola, with a barely visible path that took us to the center of the field and then utterly disappeared, which was frustrating. [At this point, for one of a very few times in the trip, I lost patience and got very frustrated at the plowed-under path, railing at the farmer with ever so slightly "colourful" language! Then again, I usually know instinctively when paths will be well-trodden or not, but I wanted to get off the road, which wasn't really all that bad. Sigh.—Ken] We waded through to the edge of the field, getting covered with yellow pollen, then picked up the path again. After crossing the railway line, we found our path took us through a cow pasture.

Much Prettier than Canola!

In the same field but coming from the direction of the station was a woman wearing nice slacks and flat but classy looking soft leather shoes, and carrying three shopping bags. Her cell phone went off in the middle of the pasture, which felt surreal. She asked if we were heading to Eyhorne Street, and we said we were, and she said she was headed the same way and we could follow her. I was amazed to see her easily climb a stile with her shopping bags, then walk down a path which was basically tall, wet grass trampled down. She was met by a man who took her bags, and then she came back to us to see if we were alright directionally. We all briefly consulted the map together, and then we were off on our final steps into Eyhorne Street, having once more experienced kindness.

Our Beautiful Room at Woodhouses

Our walk concluded with a very kind welcome from our host Richard, who gave us outstanding tea and good biscuits, got us newspaper to stuff into our damp boots, agreed to do our laundry, and set places for us at the dining room table to eat our dinner which we had brought from Detling. The baguette was excellent, and it came with a small green salad and homemade rather spicy tortilla chips, which were delicious. When we were done, Richard came out of the kitchen with a bowl full of fresh strawberries, saying that we should have them so as to use them up before they spoiled. It was a fitting and delicious dessert emblematic of the kindness we had feasted on all day.

42,068 steps, 31.551 km, 1316.2 cal
OS getamap measured distance: 15.44 mi (24.84 km)