I had intended on just a short walk today but things did not
quite pan out that way but could I find a new circular walk to do? The answer was yes.
I headed into town just at about 7.45 and went up and over
the bridge and into Rochester. There was
no traffic and not one other pedestrian on the bridge itself. Rochester Castle looked particularly fetching
and I popped up onto the green where the Christmas Fair is normally held, for a
look. I had the place to myself bar a female Blackbird sitting on a rampart.
Back down on the Promenade I walked south through the park
and along the frontage of the riverside apartments.
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| Rochester Castle |
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| Rochester Cathedral |
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| Blackbird |
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| Ivy-leaved Toadflax |
Smart Feral Pigeons with beady eyes were strutting their funky
stuff on the remnants of old piers and jetties and displaying with gusto but as
usual the females were not in the slightest bit interested in all the
posturing.
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| Feral Pigeon - about as pure Rock Dove as you can get |
A Great Crested Grebe fed mid-channel and a single Cormorant
was resting on a buoy while three sub-adult Herring Gulls squabbled over
another and a pair of Oystercatchers snuck off before I could get the camera
up.
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| Cormorant |
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| The most wondrously untended formal flower bed on the Prom - More Dead Nettle than Primula! |
I expected to get to Borstal recreation ground and have to
turn back assuming that there would be no path under the M2 and Eurostar bridges
like on the west side but to my delight it became Baty’s Marsh LNR with a
public footpath through the marinas and out the other side of these imposing structures.
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| Sea Beet |
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| A Wrack flinging Starling. So camouflaged! |
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| Looking down river |
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| My first walkabout Walnut - catkins |
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| And new leaves |
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| And the first Lords and Ladies flower of the season |
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| Common Scurvy Grass |
From here I was on a good old fashioned seawall with the Medway
on my right and a nice reedy ditch with scrub and acres of pasture on my left.
Two male Nightingales were immediately heard which is a
species that I would have hoped to have found before today on some of my walks
and Chiffchaffs, Blackcaps and Whitethroats were in good voice. My first Reed Warbler gurked in the ditch and
Cetti’s Warblers exploded into song and a bonus Water Rail wound itself up into
a 'kipping' frenzy.
There was nothing on the river at all bar some Black-headed
Gulls and a few Mallard and Mute Swans and I found it inexplicable how the damp
pastures were devoid of any Lapwings and only held a few corvids and Wood Pigeons.
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| South towards Wouldham |
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| Mute Swan |
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| St Michael & All Angels, Cuxton |
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| St Michael & All Angels, Cuxton |
I carried on south until I was adjacent to Elmhaven Marina
at North Halling and could check out the Ravens that I found last year while
six adult Med Gulls drifted back towards the bridges.
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| North Halling |
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| Med Gulls |
I turned back at this point and took the only
footpath that I had seen off the river wall across the Wouldham levels and up
to the very imposing and very hidden Starkey Castle, a Grade II Listed medieval
manor house built in 1483.
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| Starkey Castle |
From here it was a slog back along the road with Skylarks
and the glare of oilseed for company before climbing up to the pedestrian
pathway that allows you to walk over the Medway on the M2 Bridge. It was a wee bit breezy up there and I was
glad of the extra layers and my hat but the views back towards Rochester were
superb and I could almost see all the furthest points of my travels over the
last ten days.
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| Watering the Borstal cricket pitch wicket |
It was a straight run home back down the Cuxton Road with a
quick stop in Strood Cemetery on the way to collect more fir cones for my bug
boxes.
great walk
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