Grehar one

Slow Way not verified yet. Verify Grehar here.

It was a dry day after a relatively dry week, compared to the last few months at least. There wasn't much mud, at worst on some farm tracks you had to avoid wide deep ruts.

This route has some 5 stars parts, others that only just rate 3 for functional but not pleasant. But as it was blocked / inaccurate it gets a flag and a lower rating. The three blocked parts (see attached map) look plausible in theory but the maps are out of date and/or misleading. 1) A lane/permissive cycleway near the B255 Bluewater turn off has been closed since 2020 according to a dilapidated sign. OS and OSM both out of date). There's a less pleasant but easy alternative alongside the B255. 2) Just as you come into Southfleet the route goes into a large industrialised farm yard not far from St Nicholas Church. OSM is misleading and is missing several public footpaths). I didn't actually try walking through as locals showed me a better way along a public footpath but the exit onto Hook Green Road is on Google Street View and obviously private. 3) Just as you leave Southfleet the route deviates from Hook Green Rd for a while, going through another commercial farmyard, Hook Green Farm. Not sure why as the road here has pavements, bar about 10m where you are sheltered by parked cars. The first farmyard entrance was open but not welcoming. The second was gated, as I was following a (different) local's advice I did not explore within.

The route is walkable otherwise, but could be better. I've uploaded a new version avoiding the 3 issues and adjusted it to use paths that I found / was shown. Both this route and the replacement suffer from walking along the B255 a feeder road between the A2 and industrial areas near the Thames and the A2, where the (joint cycle) path is right up against 4 lanes of traffic. I was able to reduce this from 3km to under 2.

In Bean village this route goes along Beacon Drive. It's fairly steep, not particularly interesting or attractive and disappointingly the view from the top is very brief as garages block the gaps between houses. I time to explore, and found an alternative going through Beacon Woods Country Park (paths not shown on OS maps) but that does have a very long flight of steps, which this route doesn't. This way also passes an extra pub and a small shop. Although the pub in Southfleet (The Ship, a little off the route) was recommended by a local.

In Southfleet I didn't test the part of the route east of Hook Green Road where it wiggles around. The dog walker's route came out further down and by then I realised this route definitely needed replacing. It looks ok on Google Street View although I couldn't view the footpath beside the allotments, you could shorten it very slightly more direct path between Sedley and Rectory Meadow. I checked it and the rest on Strava Heat Maps it's an excellent proxy for paths being walkable if it's not too remote.

Photos of blockage 1 and some avoidable road walking.

Accurate and decent route.

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