Coastal Railtrail - First Ten Days
After ten days of walking the Coastal Railtrail .(plus rest days) I wanted to make a few reflections on the walk so far. I have been writing about each individual walk on our Facebook Group , (and recording gpx files for our coastal pages) but I wanted to make some more general observations. One thing that has struck me is how different the first sections, along the Thames Estuary, are from what I know is to come. It is largely flat, all marked by human activity, but not as urbanised as you might imagine, considering its proximity to London. I have been treated to some fantastic displays of wildlife, particularly birds, which thrive along these shores, despite everything that humans throw at them. That proximity to London makes it easy to walk here by rail, because the network is so dense, although the frequencies vary considerably. The line serving Southend-on-Sea was very frequent, whereas here on the North Kent coast, many of the suburban stations...