After a largely sedentary Christmas and new year, spent mainly on the sofa with darts on the telly and a tin of Quality Street close at hand, a crisp and clear January day provided the perfect opportunity for my first long walk of 2025.
No resolutions for me this year, by the way. Let’s be honest, they never really stick, do they? My slowly expanding waistline remains as troubling now as it was 12 months ago, and I’m still putting away enough weekly units to provoke a concerned bout of tutting from the GP.
Looking out from the pier towards the old pier head off Herne Bay
Still, all things in moderation, that’s apparently the key. So a hearty pub lunch and a pint on a weekday afternoon can surely be justified if it comes towards the end of a reasonably rigorous hike through this wonderful county we call home.
But where to wander? I consulted my trusty map of previous walks (which you can find below) and zeroed in on the stretch of the north Kent coast which I had yet to explore.
Having spied the Reculver Towers from the train window a few times in recent months, I decided it was surely time to see them up close. A bracing seaside walk from Herne Bay to Birchington-on-Sea seemed like just the ticket, with convenient railway stations bookending the day’s perambulations.
I arrived in Herne Bay suitably bundled up against the biting cold, and made my way straight down to the seafront. I turned right at the pier – its decaying pier head marooned between the shore and the wind turbines beyond – and carried on along the promenade, where I came across a woman in aviator’s gear, her eyes fixed on the skies.
A bronze statue of pioneering pilot Amy Johnson stands on Herne Bay seafrontFrom the beach at Herne Bay the Reculver Towers can be seen in the distanceThe walk followed a path along the coast between Herne Bay and Birchington-on-Sea
The bronze statue of pioneering pilot Amy Johnson, the first woman to fly solo to Australia, was unveiled in 2016. She was just 37 years old when, on January 5, 1941, the twin-engine Airspeed Oxford plane she was piloting for the Air Transport Auxiliary came down in the freezing waters of the Thames estuary off the coast of Herne Bay.
Johnson had managed to bail out and deploy her parachute, and was spotted – along with a second unidentified individual – by the crew of HMS Haslemere.
Its captain, Lieutenant Commander Walter Fletcher, bravely plunged into the icy waters in an attempt to save one of the two people his crew had reported seeing, but he himself had to be rescued from the sea and later died of exposure. Johnson’s body was never found.
According to The Amy Johnson Project, the statue “stands as a monument to women, aviation, engineering and all those who served with the Air Transport Auxiliary during the Second World War and will be a permanent landmark to inspire and educate”.
Etched on her flight cap are the words: “Believe nothing to be impossible.”
Reporter Rhys Griffiths took a walk along the coast from Herne Bay to Birchington-on-Sea via the Reculver TowersA sign warns of unstable cliffs at Reculver Country ParkThe undulating cliffs on the coast west of the Reculver Towers
Leaving the ill-fated aviator to continue her eternal watch of the clear blue skies overhead, I continued eastwards along the coast, with my objective in sight just beyond the gently undulating cliffs ahead.
Approaching the western tip of the Reculver Country Park, I was left convinced I had taken a wrong turn as the route I had followed wound rather circuitously inland and upward, leaving me convinced I had managed to veer off a more direct coastal path. But the many signs warning of the dangers posed by the unstable cliffs, particularly after recent heavy rains, gave reassurance that I was probably on the right track.
Cresting a high point, the coastline suddenly fell away before me, and the path led onwards down towards the Reculver Towers. On reaching the bottom, now more than four miles into the walk, I decided to make a quick pit stop at The King Ethelbert Inn for a swift half and some much-needed warmth.
After sinking a very agreeable measure of Brixton Brewery’s Low Voltage Session IPA and polishing off a bag of Scampi Fries, I bade the barman farewell and trundled on towards the Towers, looming imposingly just yards away from the pub on a site steeped in history stretching right back to the Roman invasion of Britain.
On the approach to the Reculver Towers from Herne BayThe church at Reculver was demolished in 1805, leaving just the two towers standing on the shoreThe Reculver Towers stand on the site of a former Roman fort
Reculver sits at the northern mouth of the Wantsum, a sea channel up to three miles wide in places which once cut off the Isle of Thanet from the Kentish mainland. Following the beginning of the conquest of Britain under the emperor Claudius in AD 43, a Roman settlement was established at Reculver and it grew to encompass a fort which helped defend the province against Saxon raids.
Unfortunately, much of the Roman site has been lost to coastal erosion, but some remains survive in the form of ruined walls and earthworks.
Following the Roman withdrawal from Britain in the 5th century, an Anglo-Saxon monastery was founded on the site in 669 and the church of St Mary was built near the centre of the earlier fort. Centuries later the church was remodelled, with the addition of the twin towers which to this day can be seen for miles around, the only surviving feature following the church’s demolition in 1805.
After wandering around the foot of the towers for a short while, I struck off again eastwards towards the Isle of Thanet, with the sea to my left and the land that reclaimed the Wantsum to my right. This stretch of coast between Herne Bay and Birchington was wonderfully quiet on a cold, bright January afternoon, with just the occasional dog-walker to share a nod and a word of greeting with as you pass.
The coastal path winds its way from Reculver towards Minnis BayThe route of our reporter’s walk along the coast from Herne Bay to Birchington-on-SeaThe sandy beach at Minnis BayA well-deserved lunch at Minnis Bay Bar & Brasserie
Before long the sands of Minnis Bay began to appear before me and in no time I found myself at the welcoming door of the Shepherd Neame hostelry (The Minnis Bay Bar & Brasserie) that overlooks the beach.
Stepping inside, the choice seemed to be between the packed bar area to the left or the expansive dining room to the right. After some deliberation, I turned right, and a cherry waitress led me to a table by the window. Pie and a pint for £15? Don’t mind if I do.
Last of the gravy mopped up, I headed back out into the afternoon chill for the short walk into Birchington and the railway station, bringing the day’s hike in just a little shy of 10 miles in all. Not bad going for my first major post-Christmas exertions.
Maybe a resolution for the new year is in order, despite my earlier insistence to the contrary. I hereby resolve to take more walks in 2025 (exercise being good for us, after all) but only on the strict condition they feature a properly luxurious lunch and a pint or two as a just reward.
Seems entirely fair to me. I’ll report back on the state of my waistline in 12 months’ time.