June 2023. Rochester, via Ebbsfleet. The preamble post.
I’d left myself one pub to complete Kent, a very expensive (even off-peak) lone tick in Rochester. With trains using the fast link to St Pancras via Ashford and Ebbsfleet costing more than a villa in Gillingham I was going to make the most of it, too.
You may be intrigued (or not) to know that a return ticket to Bognor Regis takes 3 times as long but is only a third of the price of my Rochester trip.
Those superfast trains built to take Brits to Calais and beyond come at a price, so it’s a shame that the Eurostar has halted its stops in Kent for now.
Ebbsfleet International looked particularly sad. Several folk got off the train and said “Well where the hell am I ?“. If they hadn’t been SO rude I’d have told them they were 10 minutes walk from a connecting train at Northfleet that would take him to the joys of Gravesend and Rochester, or he could wait an hour for the Rose to open if he so wished.
I decided to get off at Strood, just to see if I could find anything nice to say about it.
Well, obviously not, since you can’t even make witty comments about submarines this week.
Loads and loads of takeaways, and a pleasant riverside walk before you reach the Rochester Bridge,
one of only seven (7) in the UK not built by Brunel.
Now, I will have quite a bit to say about Rochester, a town that’s always impressed me for its collection of Proper Pubs,
and creaking beams.
But this was the first time I’d bothered to invest the time getting to know it.
One of the longest High Streets in the country, and always packed with visitors,
not all of them fans of the street art.
Anyway, 11am, time for a pint schooner…
retiredmartin 