3 Men on a walk - 2013: The Final Leg

Leg 7 - Rolvenden to Rye

At last we were in the middle of a Heat-Wave and indeed it was a very hot day for a long walk but we were determined to complete the High Weald Landscape Trail by walking the 14 miles from Rolvenden to Rye. Leaving the car with plenty of liquids to hand we set of around 9-45 aiming for Tenterden and then onwards to Wittersham where "The Swan Inn" awaited our custom.

We quickly found that the trail in this part of Kent was seriously neglected bot with way markers and also with Farmers who completely disregarded public rights of way and had planted crops across massively big fields, forcing us to walk around the field rather than across it. It took us 2 hours to reach Tenterden Town when we had expected to do it in an hour! And the heat was sapping our strength by now so we had to stop for an Ice-Cream!

The very pretty high street at Tenterden

From Tenterden it was mostly a downhill run as we were heading towards the Romney marshes but still the path was not always clear and we relied a lot on the GPS and maps. So it was not until gone 1-00pm that we slumped into The Swan gasping for ale.

Small Hythe, once a coastal port but now 10 miles inland

Food and drink (we actually drank two pints that day rather than our normal one because of the heat you understand) refreshed the legs a bit and we set off again but only after we realised that to reach the full end point of Rye Town was probably beyond us as buses only ran at the rate of one-per-hour and we risked not being able to get back to the car in Rolvenden. We set our sights on the Village of Peasmarsh which the bus travelled through but was two-miles short of Rye our original target. At this stage the pedometer was showing we had walked 14.6 miles and expended over 1,660 calories and as it doesn't take into account the temperature - it had been over 28 deg C for most of the day - we reckoned we had used up a lot more than that.