The C&M Easter Tour is an annual trip with three nights and two days of riding based somewhere away from London, with some people taking extra days to ride to & from the tour. This year the venue was Canterbury. The pre-ride to Canterbury proved very popular, with 14 people (ten ladies!) riding. Jennie remarked "It's going to be a very chatty ride", and so it proved with lots of banter and fun. The weather forecast had been dubious but in the event we had good weather for the whole weekend.
 |
| 11s at Greenwich; still smiling |
We split the ride over two days with an extra night in Rochester, and decided to ride out of London along the Thames Estuary. Sunshine and clear blue skies arrived at just the right time and London's Docklands looked beautiful in their industrial way. Everyone was in high spirits as we followed a Tony Hooker route from Greenwich to Erith, after which things went a bit downhill. There's a seemingly unavoidable busy road from Erith to Dartford, where the best option is a roadside cycle path. Dartford was jammed solid with traffic, and when we turned off onto the quiet lane to Darenth, it too was queuing along its length, in the opposite direction to us. We surmised that there was a problem on the M25 and this was overflow, but it could just have been bank holiday traffic.
Another 'quiet' lane, another jam; this time an articulated lorry in a too-narrow lane had created a logjam of cars and vans trying to come the other way. We could get past on our bikes, but the cars were stuck there for the rest of the day, we reckoned. We even felt slightly sorry for them. Eventually we made it to quiet Gravesend and a late lunch stop; outdoors, while a police helicopter buzzed angrily overhead.
 |
| Lunch in Gravesend |
Finally we were actually on quiet roads, along an old canal, past the military equivalent of Diggerland, and then, with Rochester almost in sight, we came across a pub at Upper Upnor, a tiny charming village on the Medway. To cap it all, our Premier Inn could not take card payments, so we had to make alternative arrangements for eating. Wallace would have said "Eh Gromit, that didn't go too badly", meaning that an enjoyable day had been plucked from the jaws of disaster.
 |
| Ooh! look! A pub! Upper Upnor. |
 |
A final unwelcome challenge due to a
route through a Royal Mail office. |
Good Friday from Rochester to Canterbury also dawned sunny and warm, and we set off on a gigantic bridge over the Medway into the historic town of Rochester. We passed the castle and the cathedral in quick succession, and then rode up the interesting and ancient High Street. Various hills led out of town past a series of big military buildings, including the Royal Engineers' Museum, with many curious types of adapted tank on show outside.
 |
| Rochester Castle |
 |
| & Cathedral |
Eventually we came to the coast, with expansive views over the estuary, mudflats and distant cranes on the opposite bank. From then on it was mostly along the coast, great views but slow going with a lot of cycle barriers to negotiate, with occasional inland or road bits, to Sittingbourne, for a late 11s stop at 12.30. The café had just closed, but Maddie persuaded them to re-open for 12 hungry cyclists. Jennie single-handedly fixed a puncture, demonstrating skills learned at the bike maintenance workshop.
 |
| Faversham cafe |
 |
| Steve & Ann in the 'Husband Day Care Centre' |
 |
| Apple orchards everywhere |
 |
| and Oast Houses |
After lunch the riding was mainly inland; very quiet roads which got increasingly undulating as we neared Canterbury. At the top of one particularly fine hill we stopped to enjoy the view and consume Hot Cross Buns. Then the Crab & Winkle Way bought us, very un-crabby and definitely un-wrinkly cyclists into Canterbury. It was heaving with bank holiday crowds, so much so that some of us had to stop in a pub to wait until it was a bit quieter.
 |
| Welcome to Canterbury! |
Thanks to lots of people for taking lovely photos and sharing them.
No comments:
Post a Comment