Herne Bay

Crossrail, maturing in its chrysalis under East London, will add yet another travel option to the bewildering web of interconnectedness catacombing the capital. Even now, periodic tube strikes only serve to challenge us to construct alternatives to our familiar routes which often prove faster or more appealing than the original.  Thus, undaunted by the second stoppage of the summer, I discovered bus service D8, a historical tour through Docklands' yuppy towers, mosques squatting on street corners and resurgent canals.  Embarking at Crossharbour and terminating at Stratford International it could scarcely have been more convenient. It's clearly a station not intended for lingering: no shops or advertisements Gerry wailed uncharacteristically.   Donald contemplated the concrete construction which lacked even the minimal charm of Brutalism.  It's crushed and pulverised after demolition then recast into new buildings, he mused, cheaper than landfill.

Sleek Javelin trains, the name intended to elicit subconscious associations with the swankier bullet train, emblazoned with Southeastern logos hurry to their home turf south of the Thames.  For the first few miles we're sucked through suburban tunnels in the jet stream of the Eurostars.   The speed is fitting; just as excavating these new tunnels was many times faster than digging Brunel's original Thames crossing, so the means of transport for which they are designed is proportionately swifter.

Kent doesn't much resemble the Garden of England here.  Larkin's acres of dismantled cars jostle with warehouses and builders' merchants: the usual detritus populating the penumbra of large cities.  Then impenetrable suburbia and finally some straggly vines and orchards open on to the Medway and a glimpse of a submarine half sunk in mud, its unmistakable profile still sinister in rusting decrepitude.

There's little to detain us when we reach Birchington-on-Sea. Passing mock-Tudor houses, thirties Art Deco piles and contemporary architectural riffs on both, we head for the coast. Unloved huts, which I initially took for bus shelters, support hard benches facing in two directions enabling the locals to either celebrate the sea or contemplate the smugness of the citizenry.

This coastal path makes little demands on the walker.  Most of it is a concrete-topped sea wall where anything more robust than trainers would be an affectation. Strollers predominate and a novelty multi-person bike powered by children's laughter gives the whole affair a carnival atmosphere. We ambled, orienting by Reculver a ruined abbey on the horizon and, as is the way with constantly visible objects, never growing any closer.  In the sea, a stubble of distant wind turbines intermittently materialised as the mist swirled.  On the land, from the slight eminence of the sea wall, a flat landscape strained the imagination to convexity. Occupying the sky more than the land, I felt myself striding tall.

Gerry was delighted by the foraging opportunities. Wild apples and other predecessors of modern agriculture had him waxing lyrical about self-sufficiency until we passed an industrial scale fish farm when ranting over pollution took precedence.  After a couple of hours on the shadeless path we were testy by lunchtime. I'd brought sandwiches so we were condemned to eating on the pub terrace, besieged by a loveliness of ladybirds, only retreating to the cool interior for coffee.

By mid-afternoon, strapped to motionless heat, the idea of Whitstable our original destination, had retreated and the focus was cream tea at Herne Bay. Bungalows heralded its arrival, many perched within sleepwalking distance of rapidly eroding cliffs. Come on, make my day, they challenge the sea. We escaped engulfing suburbia by descending a precipitate path, the last defence for these plucky homesteads, to rejoin the last of the beach.  Belying the unpromising outskirts, Herne Bay's sea front is resolutely Victorian, supplemented by an aloof Georgian terrace.  Tea was a disappointment and tackling a mincemeat flan constructed from Donald's recycled concrete delayed us so that after a genteel scamper through the backstreets we missed the train by moments. None of us had pressing business so we improved the hour by reading or, in my case, writing this.

© David Thompson 2015