Chasing the English Coastline on Two Wheels: Weekend Experience - WEEK 283

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ramon20244 days agoPeakD8 min read

🚵‍♀ Hello Hive family! 🚵

There can be no arrival without departure.

Hello fellow weekenders. I really like this quote and it fits really well with the topic I'm talking about for this Weekend Engagement Week.

I’m so excited to talk about this topic because it gives me the chance to share the best weekend I’ve ever had while cycling. Back when I was living in the UK, a friend and I decided to spend three days, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, cycling through the southeast of the country.

It was a really great adventure, which I would like to repeat one day. Cycling along these beautiful countryside landscapes, we had the opportunity to see a lot of different sceneries. A lot of greenery, and most of the coast in the south-east of the UK like the cliffs in Dove and the beautiful beaches in Margate.

I used the app Strava to record the whole journey, and I'm so glad I did because I have all the details of the kilometers, the time we took to cycling, and the cities we visited.

On the first day, we took a train to Lenham, the town where our adventure began. To be honest, we didn’t plan much. We just grabbed our bicycles, bought a train ticket, and hoped for an amazing journey.

At first, it was a little scary because we weren’t sure whether the paths would be suitable for cycling. And indeed, we found all kinds of terrain, some easy, some much harder. Sometimes we even had to get off our bikes and carry them on foot on impossible paths or stairs. It was an amazing adventure! I just loooove a hard challenge.

But on this first day, we made it all the way to Dover. We stopped in Folkestone and it was really nice. These are some of the beautiful landscapes we found along the way, cycling through the countryside, passing by Ashford, all the way to our first coastal town, Hythe.

I don’t remember how long we had to push our bikes along this narrow trail, but honestly, this was the part of the challenge that made everything more interesting, otherwise it could have been a bit boring, wouldn’t it? Of course, we also had plenty of asphalted roads where cycling was as smooth as it could be, always surrounded by endless greenery. And surprisingly, it didn’t rain for the entire weekend.

Some parts were a bit bumpy, and I remember worrying if my bike was the right one for this kind of ride, it is definitely more of a city bike than a mountain one. And then there there is a moment when we had to carry our bikes up those steep steps… one of those scenes where you just laugh, keep going, and hope the next part of the path is easier haha.

When we finally reached the coast, the scenery changed drastically from the soft, green countryside to a dramatic and beautiful coastline. It was such a pleasure to ride along those coastal paths, each turn revealing a different view of the sea. Eventually, we arrived at our first stop: Dover. That’s where we spent the night, and where a pretty funny story happened.

Basically, we booked a place to stay on Booking.com without reading the reviews, which is something you should always do before spending a night anywhere. I learned that the hard way. When we arrived, I swear it felt like we had stepped into a Tarantino movie, and we genuinely thought we might get killed during the night. Luckily, our room wasn’t inside the main building but in a tiny separate annex. We placed our bikes between the door and our beds, just in case someone tried to break in while we were sleeping. At least that way we’d have a bit more time to react.

I don’t know why I can’t find any pictures of the place, but I looked it up on Google Maps. It seems the place is now permanently closed. Some of the reviews were actually pretty funny. The guys working there were terrifying, the place was disgusting, and honestly we didn’t feel safe at all. We were really close to going somewhere else and paying double for another room. The only good thing was that it was super cheap. But, well… obviously.

The next day we continued our journey along the coast. We first passed by the castle, the Dover Castle, and then we reached the amazing cliffs, which became another one of my favourite parts of the entire trip. Riding our bikes along that coastline felt unreal, and the view from the top of the cliffs was just breathtaking.

I had visited the Seven Sisters before, but this was my first time seeing the cliffs in Dover. I really love the white walls of the cliffs against the dramatic cloudy sky and the endless view of the sea.

And the cliffs are actually white for a really interesting reason. They are made mostly of chalk, a soft rock that formed millions of years ago from the tiny remains of algae and plankton that settled on the sea floor. Over time, all those microscopic shells turned into thick layers of chalk. The reason the cliffs stay so white today is because the sea keeps eroding them, constantly revealing fresh chalk underneath. Without that natural erosion, plants would grow over the surface and the cliffs would look green instead of bright white.

As you can see on the map, on our second day we spent about half of the route cycling right along the coast, enjoying different cliffs, hills and amazing landscapes. The other half took us a little bit inside before returning again towards the seaside. The town where we ended our second day was such a lovely place, Ramsgate. We spent the night there and it felt incredibly cosy, especially compared to the horror of the previous night. We had dinner, stayed in a really nice accommodation and finished the day with a couple of pints in some local pubs. It was a very charming coastal town and the perfect way to end the second day of our journey.

Some pictures of this amazing second day. The cliffs, the towns, the cultural monuments on the way, the food,.. magical!

Finally, we get to our third day were we end our adventure. From Ramsgate all the way to Canterbury, passing by lovely towns like Margate and Herne Bay.

These views were a bit different. There was some clifs, but not as dramatic as the landscapes we had left behind the previous day. Most of this stretch was all about fishing boats, fishermen and those lovely little beach houses right along the shoreline. Then we reached the beautiful beach of Margate, which is quite a big town with lots of people spending the day there. After that we arrived in Herne Bay, a place I really loved, especially the port area with its small shops and spots where you can enjoy seafood and oysters. It was such a lovely atmosphere. But in the end we had to completely change our coastal direction and head straight towards Canterbury, where we could catch a train back to London.

It was an amazing adventure, one that I haven’t repeated since, and I definitely should. These kinds of trips, whether walking or cycling, are incredible experiences because you can stop at any moment to appreciate the landscape around you. I love road trips too, but the advantage of doing it on a bike is that it’s so much easier to stop whenever you want and take in what’s around you. Luckily, I didn’t get a flat tire and my bike survived the whole journey without any issues. It’s actually still in one piece today, which is pretty surprising.

🌏 I hope you enjoyed this journey through my cycling adventure along the coast of Southeast England.
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