How have I never seen the Medway estuary before?
I live near the upper river where the banks are a single-span bridge apart. Sometimes I paddle further downstream under the medieval arches of East Farleigh and Teston. The river can be wild here, uncontrollable, but I can always see the other side.
For most people it's easy to ignore the river up here unless you live in a flooding place. The catchment is vast and invisible but if you track the narrow valleys of the high Weald you can see how every one carries a stream that brings its water to the sea.
I've been following one of them for over a year now, and finally, a week ago, I reached the estuary. It was a revelation.
I made a seven-day journey to get there and on the third day I escaped the traffic roar of the Medway towns to drop down to the Strand in Gillingham.
There were benches looking out, people sitting in ones and twos. Children paddling in the shallows. Black-headed gulls squawking and diving. A lone tender puttering out to a boat moored in the deeper water. A small island hid the far side but I could see cranes, crate-shaped buildings, industrial chimneys.
I sat for hours looking out over the mudflats and the water, simply enjoying the vastness of the light and the space.
How strange that this water begins as small, earthy streams in our hilly fields.
Strange too, to be looking out over somewhere that is so out of reach to me, unless I grow wings, or float.
I've found a place I think I love (even in the pouring rain) and that I want to get to know better. I'll certainly be back.
More about my Slow Medway project.
