This has been my favourite of the Kent Coastal Path walks so far, but then I have only done three to choose from! I had been really looking forward to it as it is the first one so far that actually veers away from the road for most of the route, and so it was all going to be new. I was also joined by my daughter and enjoyed having her company.

We started at the Victorian water fountain on the sea front at Littlestone, and then headed off along the coastal path. The tide was going out which meant that we were able to see the first historical feature of the day – part of the Mulberry Harbour Caisson, a floating harbour which had been built in sections and towed across the channel to be used to support the D-Day landings in June 1944. Many of the sections subsequently came adrift, and this one has remained off the Kent Coast ever since.

We continued towards the tower, which has always been a bit of a landmark from a distance, but I had never seen close up before. I had always assumed that it was some kind of folly, but in fact it was originally built as a water tower in 1890. It fell out of use and became a look out tower during World War II and is now a house. A pretty cool place to live, but an awful lot of stairs!

Continuing along the path we came across a sweet little coffee van, and even though we were still only at the beginning of our walk, we felt compelled to have a refreshment stop. The owner was very friendly and the coffee and chai latte he served us were very good. I would thoroughly recommend supporting his business if you are passing.

As we approached St Mary’s Bay, the sands started to become busier, and by Dymchurch they were busier still, which gave for a real holiday atmosphere.

We used to come here a lot when my children were little as they loved all the ‘lakes and rivers’ that appeared as the tide went out, perfect for toddlers to splash about in. My daughter absolutely adored the donkeys and having a ride was always a highlight of her day, so we were sad to see that there are no donkeys anymore.

We ate our picnic lunch on the beach before continuing along the esplanade to the Dymchurch Redoubt, built during the Napoleonic Wars to provide supplies for the chain of Martello Towers along the coastline from Rye to Hythe. Once again the red flag was flying which meant that firing was taking place on the Hythe ranges ahead, and so at this point we reluctantly needed to divert from the coast on to the road.

This was a bit of a low point. The road was busy, and because it was hot and dusty it seemed to take a longer than anticipated time, as we desperately looked out for the garage where the turn off was going to be. One of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway trains came trundling along the line as we reached a level crossing which was nice, but then we got lost in a small housing estate, trying to navigate our way to the Military Canal at the earliest opportunity which wasn’t so nice – but we did spot a sound mirror up on the hillside. I am of course now a sound mirror expert!

The remainder of the walk into Hythe followed the Royal Military Canal.

It was quiet and peaceful – except for the croaking of some marsh frogs, and, interesting fact of the day, my daughter told me that in Germany, frogs go ‘quark’ and not ‘ribbit’, which seemed to much more accurately describe the noise that these marsh frogs were making! It should have been a nice ending, but we took the executive decision to pick up the pace in the hope of catching the very irregular direct bus service back to Canterbury, so instead it was an extremely brisk walk, with constant watch checking, and we rather had blinkers on as regards our surroundings. At the time it made sense, as we were tired and didn’t really want to spend twice as long travelling home via Folkestone, but it made for a rather abrupt ending to what had been a lovely day. The perils of relying on public transport!