To be honest, this walk was just intended to be a stand alone one, and only came about because I wanted to go to Teapot Island. I’d come across several mentions of this cafe with its Guinness World Record collection of teapots over the years, and stored it away in the back of my mind as somewhere to visit at some point. Then, earlier in the summer, I saw a Kent Online article announcing that it was up for sale because the owners were retiring, and so I decided that I had better get moving before it was too late.

We could have walked there from either Tonbridge or Maidstone, but opted for the former purely because we could get there by direct train, and so it was a coincidence that it also happened to be the start of the Medway Valley Walk. It then turned out to be such a lovely walk that my daughter and I both agreed that we now want to complete all of it, first to Maidstone and then on to Rochester – hence this now being the first part of what will hopefully be three!

We joined the River Medway close to Tonbridge Castle, and couldn’t believe how quickly we left the noise of the town behind. We soon found ourselves walking through peaceful water meadows, and despite being so easily accessible there was nobody else around. The riverside path was clearly marked and we enjoyed the solitude as we followed its course, periodically passing sets of locks that make the river navigable by boat.

As we neared the Paddock Wood Hop Farm, we reminisced about the last time we had been there which was for a Sylvanian Families event (random!) when my daughter was little. There’s now a big camp site, and reflecting the number of tents that were pitched, the riverside path became busier, and there were lots of paddle boarders enjoying a pleasant afternoon on the water.

At Teapot Island we stopped for an obligatory cream tea, and sat outside in the garden by the side of the river – although disappointingly, the tea did only come in a bog standard white teapot. We didn’t pay to go into their museum of teapots, but there were lots of shelves of novelty teapots on display inside the cafe itself.

From there, it was a short walk into Yalding where we caught the train to Paddock Wood and then changed for home. I’m not sure that we’ll be tackling Part 2 any time soon, but it is definitely on the to do list.