Ever since I was a young lad I've liked to walk. Offers of a lift would be politely turned down - I wanted to walk. To see what was around me, whether that be a panoramic view, interesting architecture or getting a feel for an area. In later life it also included looking at the wildlife. When I go into London I'll shun the underground as there are parts of the capital that are hidden away from you unless you walk the pavements - lively side-streets, tucked away museums, discreet churches, fantastic pubs. When I was very ill (some 30 years ago now) I refused to lie down and used my walking as a way to keep fit both mentally and physically. And now that I am well advanced in years I use walking as a way of oiling my joints, stretching my muscles and helping the grey matter to keep working. I do not take my ability to 'put in the steps' for granted and when I do it is an act of celebration and, if I'm being honest, a way of trying to keep ageing at bay. There is, I'll admit, a sticking-up of two-fingers towards mortality although I do realise that in the long run there will be only one winner in that particular race.
On my recent stay at Dungeness Bird Observatory (DBO) I became aware that the Lydd firing ranges were to be closed over the weekend of May 23rd/24th. These ranges are used by the MOD to practice artillery fire and are mostly closed off to the public. However, when access is allowed there is a single footpath that runs parallel to the sea some 100m inland, a raised clay embankment that is referred to as 'The Green Wall', constructed many years ago as a flood defence measure against sea incursion. Over the years I have walked this path and had a hankering to do so again. It would normally be a case of driving to Galloways, parking the car, and walking to Jury's Gap before retracing your steps. This time I wanted nothing to do with any engine apart from my own - my heart, lungs and legs. A walk from the observatory and back would be a long one, and looking at the map a very interesting one, especially if I ventured out onto Walland Marsh to check the farmland. It was settled. The weather forecast was excellent (possibly a bit too hot) and I plumped for the Saturday.
I left DBO at 05.30hrs and walked along the English Coastal Footpath, on the seaward side of the decommissioned power stations. This took me to Dengemarsh sewer, a far more agreeable place than might be gathered from its name, a vegetated and water filled ditch that has a thick growth of gorse and stunted trees that has a reasonable record for producing good birds - but not this morning. From here the track heads inland and becomes a metalled road that then forks back towards the sea, sweeping through mixed, degraded farmland before a narrow track leads to the beach at Galloways. This is wild Dungeness.
The top picture is of the start of the Green Wall at Galloways, looking northwards. To the left is a 100-150m stretch of shingle to the sea, to the right the firing ranges. You do not leave this wall - there is the real chance of coming across live ammunition if you do!! There is an almost 200-year old history of this large area of shingle being used by the military and in recent years much has been spent on shoring up the sea defences, something that I noticed as I walked northwards along its length.
The image above (top) shows quite clearly the vast expanse of shingle - largely lacking vegetation - that the ranges cover. This is just a small part of it. Before the power station was built and Dungeness became a bit of a tourist hot spot this would have been what most of the peninsula looked like - open, little growth, long horizons, big skies. The picture beneath shows the Green Wall a mile further on from Galloways, where the upgraded coastal defence work is obvious. To the left is one of a series of pools that are collectively known as The Brooks. My claim to fame here is of finding a drake Surf Scoter sitting on the sea in April 1984, doing the right thing and hanging around for all of the local birders to also enjoy.
A mile or two further on, and to the inland side of the wall, I reached more wetland, known as The Midrips and The Wicks, both sizeable water bodies. Before shingle extraction at Dungeness this was the closest site that the DBO birders of the 1950s could get their wader fix (if you ignore the sands in Lade Bay). Mist-netting also took place here, with much success. It had a fine pedigree for turning up rarities which, mainly through a lack of coverage and possible habitat degradation, is not necessarily replicated nowadays - although I have seen Black-winged Stilts here. Today I had to make do with Avocets and a Whimbrel. Soon afterwards I had reached the end of the Green Wall and was at Jury's Gap, and it was here that I joined the cycle path that headed back southwards, following the line of the Camber Road and onto Lydd. It is a pleasant walk, with far reaching views across Walland Marsh and the gravel pits at Scotney, where a grassy sward can often provide the birder with much to look at. Today that was mostly a mix of tatty Greylag and Egyptian Geese.
On reaching Scotney Court Farm I walked up the track that meanders through the farm buildings and out onto Walland Marsh. As much as I may bang on about 'big skies' at Dungeness, they are on a much grander scale out here! I wandered for maybe a couple of miles on the footpaths and stopped in my tracks. I scanned the 360 degrees before me. As flat as a pancake. The horizon so far away I couldn't really see it. Blue sky and not a breath of wind. The only sound of calling Yellow Wagtails and singing Corn and Reed Buntings. Heavenly. The odd farm building attempted to break the horizon but were not tall enough to really register, the same true for the odd clump of hawthorn and elder. Fields of flax, mustard, barley and broad bean were verdant and rude of health. I felt small, vulnerable and ever so insignificant out here, perspectives skewed, excited by it all. What a place.
I wandered into Lydd Town by 13.00hrs and sat in the shade of the church to eat my lunch, followed shortly afterwards by a cup of tea courtesy of Martin Casemore in his front garden. He did offer me a lift back to the observatory but I politely declined. A footpath across fields and onto the RSPB reserve - plus another that ran between the New Diggings and Burrowes Pit - found me on the home leg back to DBO where the shower awaited! As I walked across that last leg, by the Oppen pits, I noticed some old wooden posts that had been driven into the shingle to mark the footpath. Could they have been put there back in the early 1960s by Bob Scott? I'd like to think so.
44,891 steps. 27.2km.
I was disappointed. I thought that I might be able to break my day record but was way off (55,272 steps and 33km in case you are interested). Taking this particular walk out of the equation, my average steps/km for this stay at Dungeness worked out at 26,664/15.9km. As I mentioned earlier, I use it not to lose it. I don't think I'm big and clever putting in these shifts, I genuinely get a lot from undertaking them. I know too many people who, for whatever reason, cannot do them, so in some ways I do it for them. And each and every walk throws something up, something wonderful. It reminds me of one of my favourite lines from a film -
"I have seen things you people wouldn't believe..."
And I do. Every time. Tens of thousands of 'white' butterflies dancing above a coastal field in Sussex, as if fine mist. Meteors streaking through the night sky against a backdrop of stars that are trillions of miles away and appear to us not as of now but of years ago. A stained glass window in a church that dances into life at the command of a shaft of sunlight. Or maybe a buttercup Yellow Wagtail singing its plaintive song from an ear of barley in a landscape not unlike a mid-west prairie with nobody else to witness it but me.
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