SWC walk 30 - Dover to Deal Length: 17l.2km (10.7 miles)
Toughness: 3 out of 10
10.37 train from
St Pancras (Southeastern Highspeed platforms) to
Dover, arriving 11.41
Buy a ticket in advance - a day return to Deal - up to
6pm the day before, online on the
Southeastern website or at staffed Southeastern stations, using the
Southeastern Summer Offer. Using the above offer,
the return fare is just ÂŁ10.
I am not sure whether there is limited availability on the offer, but book early to avoid disapppointment. Otherwise it is
ÂŁ21 with a
Network Card so long as you use the
Southeastern machines at St Pancras (eg go up onto the departure level and use the machines just by the barriers).
I
hope this above offer works OK: it is an obscure promotion with odd rules, one being that it only applies to trains after 10am, even on Saturday, hence the late start. Another rule of the offer is that "you cannot break up and resume your journey": does this mean a Deal return won't work at the barriers at Dover? I honestly don't know.
If you are a South Londoner and really really really want to be perverse you could take the 10.07 from Victoria, 10.23 Bromley South, arriving Dover at 12.06 and walk fast to catch up. The ÂŁ10 offer also applies on this train. But taking the Victoria line to Kings Cross to use the high speed train makes more sense and is a LOT faster on the way back: see below. For
walk directions click
here.
You've seen
Dunkirk: now go and see where it happened. This walk gives you a grandstand view of that important little 20.7 miles of sea, without which we would now be living in a Europe dominated by Germany
(Err.....). For a walk on the airy heights it is easy underfoot - only two climbs, few undulations. Lots of views of ferries.
Lunch is at
the Coastguard pub on the beach in St Margaret's Bay, which does food till 14.45, but if you can't hold out that long, the
White Cliffs Visitor Centre earlier in the walk does sandwiches and the like. There is also usually a
refreshment kiosk open on the beach at St Margaret's Bay.
Note that in the whole middle section of this walk your phone may switch to being on a French network: this maybe does not matter as much as it did now the EU has banned extortionate roaming charges, but you still may find yourself using minutes or bytes not included in your package.
For tea, the Blue Birds Tea Room was closed for refurbishment or conversion into something else when I passed in June, but it is too soon after lunch anyway. The
Zetland Arms in Kingswood, at the start of the long flat Deal beach, is an alternative mid afternoon stop: open on fine afternoons and with tables right by the sea. Otherwise,
Deal has lots of options: I love the place at the end of the pier even if the service is a bit dozy: the views are tremendous. But other walkers have other favourites. Most SWC-ites skip the short walking tour of the old town in the walk directions in their mad rush to get to the station, but they shouldn't and neither should you.
Sea swimming: Low tide is at 5.50pm and so there should be sufficient depth for swimming at
St Margaret's Bay at lunchtime: it is not a bad place for a dip at that, a scenic and tranquil bay, but there are currents further out, so be careful. At any point on
Deal beach you will find a strong current parallel to the shore: it doesn't mean you can't swim but don't go too far out and don't expect to come back to the shore at the same place you left your clothes. Towards low tide the water can be rather mucky, but I have swum in it before and am not dead yet.
Trains back are at
31 past train direct to
St Pancras, taking
1 hour 23 minutes. Unless you did not get a ÂŁ10 ticket and have not paid the high speed supplement, you would have to be really peverse to want to go back to Victoria, since this takes an hour longer (2hr 21) even if the connections work OK, but for the record the 00 past train northbound from Deal to Faversham offers you a rather tight 5 minute change at Faversham to a Victoria service. T=2.30
The rain had stopped before we got there and for the rest of the day it was mostly sunny with a very fresh breeze.
We set off in three groups which after some unfortunate intermingling became still three groups, but in different composition, then we were four groups once the 14th walker joined. Again, not quite what the protocol requires... Let's do better next time,
Splendid walk, with lots of variations possible along the various terraces of levels of the cliffs near Dover, where there were plenty of people, off the various nearby car parks mainly (also the visitor centre and cafe have re opened), but also very wide paths. Further along, at St. Margaret's Bay, the first of many vans selling food or drink stuff was encountered (this one selling ice cream, but later some were selling cocktails or even pizza from a wood fired oven, from converted VW Transporters!).
I walked on to Sandwich, neatly arriving a few minutes before the 17.12 train, and at least one other did the same (but missed that train). Most/all others presumably finished in Deal, at least 1 after a couple of swimming breaks.
Three groups of cyclists were encountered on the narrow clifftop Public Footpath, all being young parents with their children.
As for that bit of the route: I liked it. Initially the beach is quite narrow just to your right, with the waves crashing a mere 20m away, then once out of Deal follows a longer stretch on the shingle seawall, with a links golf course on the left. You continue on tarmac from the Sandwich Bay Estate onwards, always with fine views of the Isle of Thanet and the (white) cliffs of Ramsgate ahead. Turn left along the Saxon Shore Way across the very scenic Royal St. George's Golf Course (well waymarked) and then cross or walk along several waterways, streams and ditches. Pretty and quiet, certainly very quiet compared to the hubbub that is Deal. Would do it again...