Canterbury to Tenterten

August 4, 2024

Across country

The ride down to the River Stour path is easy because it is down- to the bottom of our hill on Whitstable Road. The River Stour is right there as is the sign for the path. Being a sunny summer Sunday morning, there are lots of people out walking in the gardens across the river or exercising on the path.

Last view of some of Canterbury’s historical buildings.

The path runs for a few kilometres and is a pleasant ride. There are houses with flowery gardens and rustic sheds running down to the river, just as we’ve seen in France.

Once we come to the end of this cycle path, we take a small road to Chartham. The road then changes to an off road path that has a few ups and downs and narrows for a short distance, but remains a good surface. We’re getting a bit more of a ‘wilderness experience’ (slight exaggeration) and a feeling of being in the rural landscape now. We do appreciate Sustrans keeping us away from heavy traffic, even if the paths are a little hilly and sometimes rough.

Although views of open country are not frequent, a few interesting structures appear on the horizon from time to time.

This is as narrow as it gets- not for long fortunately.

Lunch is at Wye in a beautiful park. Afterwards we take advantage of the fact that there’s a supermarket and supplement our food rations. We then have a look at St Gregory and St Martin Church. There was a church here in the Saxon period, dedicated to St Gregory which was noted in the Domesday Book when Wye was a royal manor. it has been through a few alterations and changes since then, and is still an impressive piece of architecture and design.

After Wye, we are headed in the direction of Ashford which has a good cycleway taking us around and out of the city. Ashford is a much bigger centre than I had imagined, and traffic is quite heavy but we’re delivered out of town without too much trouble and through a park and wooded area.

To reach Tenterden we continue to follow 18 until the last minute when we turn off to find the head of the Raja- king Hotel. This involves a little bit of a roundabout ride to avoid heavy traffic, but soon we’re there. We’re welcomed in, our bikes are taken care of, and we work our way through the order menu for the best curry available.

Today's ride: 61 km (38 miles)
Total: 1,715 km (1,065 miles)

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