Eynsford to Otford

2 December. It was a cold and foggy day as thirteen ramblers set off down the Darent Valley, under the railway viaduct to Lullingstone Castle. It was very muddy underfoot and four of our number preferred to stay in the valley, following the Darent to Shoreham, where they visited the vineyard and the Church and kept our table warm in the Samuel Palmer pub.

The rest of us headed up through the golf course and Beechen Wood to the top of the hill where you are normally rewarded with a view. Today you could see to the end of a field, but not much further. Then as we descended to Shoreham under the chalk Cross, the sun started to break through.

We were very muddy by the time we arrived in Shoreham, most of us choosing the warm pub over a picnic. After lunch we took the slightly more circuitous route to Otford, via Filston Farm and the small pillar marking the position of Pluto in Otford’s Solar System scale model. The afternoon was sunny!

Shoreham Church

No walk that ends in Otford is really complete without tea and cakes at the Olive Tree (attached to the Hospices of Hope charity shop). But today we had been threatened that trains would stop running in the late afternoon, so we went straight to the station and home.

Janet. Thanks to Virginia and Sigrid for photos.