Two of us at Southwark Needle at 9am....we picked up another on

Halfpenny Hatch bridge, and another at Greenwich station. 4 go half price so we got the return tickets to Tonbridge for only £3.40 each....bargain. I nipped to Gregg's for a coffee and pasty. Others arrived and 7 of us got the 10.07am for Rochester. Another, in a highdramasplitsecond, missed by 30 seconds.....I tried to hold the sliding doors open, failed.

Another 3 got on at stations down the line. Good to see the routes we often ride from high. The midtunnel open to the air amphitheatre where the canalboats used to pass each other before the railway took the tunnel is a fascinating 2 second flash. 2 more met us at Rochester station. 13 then.

We detoured Rochester's interesting High Street, one way. Onto the path in the Medway riverside park at the start of the Medway Valley Walk (MVW). Good that someone pointed out a florid plaque I'd not noticed.....to a 1912 hero who dived in to rescue a young girl. He died.
I've disgracefully forgotten his name but he was down for the day from Bermondsey....like those Last Orders lads who stopped for a beer in the High Street we'd just had to miss.

We followed the MVW through the Rochester outskirts, into the nature reserve, into a marina that was a deadend (I'd forgotten that), and on under the M2 bridge. One rider got pedantic. "You missed that path sign". No I didn't, we're on it. "It's illegal to cycle on footpaths". I pushed that remark away probably too brusquely and was too lazy to explain that I don't ever ride on busy paths, but see not problem at all about riding empty rurals. He walked the stretches, we waited nicely.
The website entry clearly said we were riding the path.....

But, lots of rain since I discovered the route 2 weeks ago meant that after only 2 miles my mudguards etc were so clogged with mud that I had to get off a push. We headed for tarmac lanes quicker than I wanted too but that made sense. Riding on the wet surface was hard overconcentrating work....you didn't have time to glance at the lovely scenery.

We stopped at St Mary's Church in tiny Burpham......it's redundant, lovely, locked.

We lifted the bikes over the gate and went on into the dead zone.
Truffle, behave, said a pleasant labrador-walker. Several ramblers were amazed at the crowd of us. The fallen tree still blocked the road. Past the vandalised security entrance and out round a formidable set of locked gates (by Jacksons I noticed...they're building the St John's bikepark).

Then into Aylesford Priory. Founded in the C13, dissolved by Henry8, refounded by Belgium Carmelite Friars in 1949. A lovely range of buildings and one of the best modern chapels I've seen....very ordinary pottery, the queue for lunch took 20 minutes....slow amateur catering.
Soup etc. Ripe for total improvement. Christmas Fayre (sic) in the other barn was good for cards. Neat Little Britain moment (they've lost it) as we rescued an electric wheelchair stuck in the pondside mud. The trainmisser caught up with us. He'd got the next to Rochester, bought a
map,and took the big roads to the lunchstop.

And someone mentioned they were removing the bells from Aylesford church. So we rode the 500 metres to it and parked up under the 1708 yew tree next to the c11 tower and stepped inside. They were glad to see us. There under the tower were 5 church bells....taken down that day. 3 stayed up there. The oldest down had 1652 on the side. Made at the still going Whitechapel bell foundry. The wooden frames that hold the bells were worn out. Taken down by the expert Kent County Association of Bell Ringers. So they're all off to White's in Abingdon for renovation. Back around February 2006. And we got good chatting with the crew/locals. I had to mention Tarkovsky's Andrei Rublev........wonderful scenes of a Russian medieval bell-maker castings bells.....and his Stalker and the dead zone. (Last two bells donated by a Lord Brassey who, says the church, did more railway works than Brunel).

Bike lane into messy Maidstone. 3 got the train.

The rest of us found the riverside way out eventually and paralled the Medway southbank through East Farleigh and lots of oast houses and one very big hill that hurt. We crossed the Medway at Yalding, smiled through a village called East Peckham (Nunhead surely) then Golden Green...lots of rivers and the mist and smoke hanging over the fields was coloured up by a beetroot sunset.....very special light.

Tonbridge station. Train waiting. Every bike for itself...we ran. And made it. 4.30pm. Dark.

We lost people at various stations but 4 of us ended up in the excellent Rose on Snowsfields close London Bridge.

32 miles v the 30 advertised. The mud was hard work for those with mudguards but that was a small part of the rich pattern of a very varied day out. The area needs more explores.

Barry Mason - Southwark Cyclists
07905 889 005