3 men on a walk 2016: The North Downs and Darent valley

Otford - North Downs - Shoreham loop

The first "Monday Walk" of 2016 and we needed a bit of a challenge. The weather was also challenging but it seemed as if the further north was better and so we chose this 8 mile loop walk which starts with a massive climb up to the top of the North Downs.

Parking up at Otford our first surprise was that the car park was now a pay zone where it was free the last time we parked there! The first of the showers was lingering but generally we got away without getting wet for the first hour or so and the views across the valley were great. Gradually we looped around towards Shorham Village and dropping down again into the valley we were hit by several pretty sharp showers,

Shoreham has a couple of nice pubs but being to early to stop we carried on around the figure-of-eight loop we had planned knowing that in an hours time we would be back in the village again. We were but to our dismay both pubs were closed! Still looking on adversity as a positive, we knew that there were pubs we had not used before in Otford and so we pushed on to complete the whole walk.

The ground was sodden for most of the walk but this last section was really bad in places with mud pools the consistency of custard in places. To make it worse, we hit a really heavy shower just as we reached the car. However, the "Bull Inn" was just across the road and we found some excellent ales and food to warm ourselves up again.