........Yes, I did it ! I managed to walk from Birchington On Sea railway station to Herne Bay railway station. According to my Cardio Trainer GPS tracker I walked 9.35 miles, but that doesn't tell the whole story. For instance, just to the right of the blue dot on the route there is a small gap in the trace. It was there that I paused for less than 10 minutes to eat a Twix bar. I also changed into canvas shoes and had a paddle in the rather muddy sea. At least the sand was muddy, the water was clear, but that mud did have an unpleasant green tinge to it. Once I had changed my shoes I should have resumed the GPS tracking, but I forgot to do it until after I had changed back into dry shoes again. I didn't walk far with the tracker off, but that little extra, plus the fact that I stopped the tracker at a pub a little way from the station, may have taken the total walk to at least 9.5 miles, and maybe even 9.6. That is remarkably close to a 10 mile walk I was hoping to build up to many weeks in the future. I guess my new aim now is something like 12 miles, but I think I have reached my practical limit for now.

 Not only have I reached the effective limit to my endurance, but I have now also walked the entire length of the coast from Margate to Whitstable. All I have to do now is to walk from Whitstable eastwards until what could be called the seaside turns into river bank, and I don't think it is that far. That will mean I have walked both the north and south sides of the Thames Estuary where it could be called seaside, and that only leaves several thousand miles (or something) of British coastline to walk ! Though for practical reasons I very much doubt I will be exploring more than the southeast corner of the country. The travelling is too far to go anywhere else, but there is still plenty more to do in the south east.

 It would be true to say that after that long walk many bits of me hurt this morning. Suprisingly though, it is not the parts you think would hurt the most. My legs don't feel too bad, and apart from a couple of small blisters, my feet don't feel too bad either. The more serious pain is from bad sunburn on my legs, and a lot less pain from my arms. When I had a shower a little while ago, the warm water felt like molten lava on a few bits of my legs. There was a definite tingle on a few bits of my arms too. My face, which obviously is always exposed to the sun every day that there is sunshine, is a bit red, but feels fine. I did notice that the rest of my head was a little tender in some areas when I brushed my hair this morning. No doubt "nanny" would have insisted that I put on some sun blocker and worn a hat while out in the hot sunshine yesterday, and apart from the hat I reluctantly, with hindsight, would have agreed with (the fictional) nanny. Next time I am out in hot sunshine I will, but now the tanning process has started it will become less important as the body builds up it's own protection (or so says my semi-psuedo personal science).

 The one thing that is not psuedo science, although the actual figure is probably only an approximation, is that my walk burnt 1437 calories. If I had not eaten the large Twix bar during my walk it would mean that I had a calorie defecit just for the duration of the walk without considering how many calories I was burning just from being alive and thinking as I would on any normal day. My dinner when I got home was the terrible fried chicken and chips, but it was a slightly more moderate portion than I would consume through normal gluttony. I bought 6 pieces of chicken and four fries (a standard option on the menu of the shop). Two portions of fries I just threw away. At least one portion of chicken was eaten by Smudge, and I ate one portion of chicken for breakfast. Eating just four pieces of chicken is like a snack for me, but it seemed enough last night for my whole dinner (and only meal of the day if you ignore the Twix bar during my 5 - 10 minute break from walking). The result was that I lost a few more pounds yesterday. Whether I can keep all that off today is a difficult question. With a lot of time on my hands today it seems unlikely that I will be able moderate my eating that well, but I may not go too mad.

 The walk itself was partly interesting, and partly boring slog. It was low tide for most of my walk and it was interesting to see that a lot of the sea bed that was uncovered by the low tide was actually the eroded roots of the cliffs that were a feature of at least half my walk. At the start they were white chalk, and around the middle they were a sort of slightly orange clay colour. Around Reculver, just over the halfway point of my walk, the cliffs were very high, and there was evidence of some very recent rock falls. I did spend a minute or so kicking over the debris of one fall that may have happened as recently as a few days ago, to see if I could spot any obvious fossils. Although it looked soft and crumbly it was remarkably hard, and without tools I could not break open any of the smaller rocks to see what was inside, nor did I spot anything obvious on the outside.

 Reculver castle, with the remains of a church that had been built on top of it, was interesting, and if it hadn't been covered in kids I might have stopped to have a poke around. I have a few good pictures of it, plus loads of other pictures along my walk, and as usual I will be making up a web page with the best, or most interesting of them.

 Once again I was not that impressed with Herne Bay. I have now seen both the east and west sides of it, and it doesn't appeal to me. It's not nasty and tacky like Southend, but it hasn't got the elegance of somewhere like Bexhill. The only words that come to mind when trying to describe how I feel about it are "council estate". Obviously it is not a council estate but it has that sort of feel to it - like the local council desperately trying to make something very drab look good, and not really succeeding because under the bright paint you know it is still drab. If it's any consolation to the inhabitants of Herne Bay, I am not talking about the deeply ghettoised inner London council estates where the best form of protection is an armoured truck with rocket launchers on it, but the more outer London estates where you really don't like walking at night, and still keep an eye over your shoulder during daylight.

 My biggest disappointment along my walk was not knowing exactly where the fabled Minnis Bay beach was. This was the place I read about in a local paper last year as a suggested legal naturist beach. If it was where I think it was I can see no objection to allowing people to cavort about naked apart from the nudists themselves. Basically there is no beach as pictured in that local paper. What I saw was just rocks, boulders, seaweed and slime. I can only guess that I was looking at the wrong place, or the picture in the paper was taken from a very clever angle.

 Today I am going to have a good rest - I think. I am not seeing Aleemah today as planned. She is off colour and won't be coming over. There is so little chance that I will hear from Patricia that it is not worth thinking about. So I will go out and do a little shopping when the shops open at 10 am, and after that I don't really know what I will choose to do. My options include some extra snoozing, watching some TV, doing some work on one of my spare PCs, or editing yesterdays photos and making up a new web page for them. The latter is very likely, and I will probably do a mixture of all the other things.

I wasn't expecting to see the cheering sight of naked bodies, but there was no need for Canerbury City Council to rub it in !

 The fifth problem was that after 4 or 5 miles my feet began to hurt. Practically all the walking I had done was on paved ground, and it was taking it's toll on my feet. I mentioned yesterday that my hiking shoes were getting less comfortable, and it now seems that they have almost had their day for these long walks. Some of the blame may lie with the socks I was wearing though. They were a little loose around the toes, and may not have been giving as much protection as they could have.

 The sixth problem was a major annoyance. I had been tracking my progress using the Cardio Trainer software on my Android phone, and the last distance I saw recorded was over 5 miles. That was while I was approaching Whitstable harbour. From then on I used it to leave the beach area and navigate towards the station. It was because I was using it frequently as a navigation aid that I didn't wait for the screen to lock before putting into the case with my camera which was dangling around my neck. I finally got onto the road that leads directly to the station, and without checking the distance I had walked I put the phone back in my camera case. As I did I heard it clicking as the scroll wheel, which was obviously rubbing against the case, moved several times. When I pulled it out to check it I found that it had obliterated all trace of my long walk. Now I don't know far I walked, but I am pretty certain that it was very close to, or may have slightly exceded 6 miles.

 The seventh and eighth problems were at Whitstable station. There was no pub near the station, and I was looking forward to a pint of beer after that long walk. To rub salt into the wound I realised that the next train was due in less than one minute, and I didn't even have time for one last fag before getting on the train. Had there been a pub in view I would gladly have waited 30 minutes for the next train while drinking, cooling off and smoking. Despite it not really being that warm on the coast, I had worked up a sweat and a cooling off period before boarding the train would have been nice.

 The ninth problem was largely of my own making. With the extended journey time due to the manual signalling I expected that I would miss my connection at Bromley South, and in a way I did, but such was the delay that we arrived in time for the next train back to Catford. Unfortunately I was looking out for a train towards Kentish Town, Luton or Bedford. In my ignorance I forgot that on Saturdays the trains are diverted towards Victoria, and it wasn't until I had just missed a train that I realised this. I could have waited another 30 minutes, but I elected to get a bus back to Catford.

 The tenth, and last problem was with the bus. It was a little too warm on it, and after a couple of stops the back of the bus was full of very noisy annoying brats. So it was not a pleasant ride, but the worse bit is that the service was due to terminate in Catford and the final stop was one before I thought it would be. So with aching feet I had a little extra to walk. It did take me past a cash machine that I wanted to use. So I guess I would have to be positive and admit that every cloud has a silver lining.

 While I enjoyed my long walk I would say I only enjoyed it about half as much as could have been possible. Having now walked from Herne Bay to Whitstable I now have a new challenge for some time in the not too distant future. That challenge is to walk from Birchington On Sea, where I finished my walk from Margate, to Herne Bay. It is a fairly long walk, perhaps exceeding 7 miles, but it could have it's compensations. It means walking by Minnis Bay, and if my memory serves me well, that is already being used informally as a nudist beach, and there is a movement to make it official. Unless by some miracle I found a daring female partner to walk with me I think it would be wiser to keep my camera out of sight, but there could be some interesting sights to see (as well as some gruesome one too !).

 I still want to explore further along the coast from Whitstable, but the next railway station back towards London is a long way away, and inland too. So I will have to resurect my circular walk for that. Possibly before that there is another stretch of coast to walk that would join on to the start of an earlier walk, and that is Broadstairs to Margate.I estimate that to be over 6 miles, and more like 7, but once I have completed that I could claim to have explored the majority of the coast on the southern side of the Thames Estuary. I think that during the course of this year I could potentially explore most of the coastline of the southeastern corner of England. It's an interesting challenge, and I think I look forward to it.

 The most significant thing is that the total length of the walk was 7.13 miles, and that is a new record for me. The other thing is that I apparently burnt just under 1100 calories doing it. After that I think my only meal of the day, a large Chinese takeway was well deserved ! If I make a habit of this I might even lose some weight !

 So how do I feel ? I am obviously rather tired, and I must get to bed soon so I am fresh for another day out tomorrow (but one involving far less walking - I hope). I think my feet and legs have stood up to the assualt rather well, but I would not be surprised if I felt a bit stiff in the morning. As for my depression......well the root cause still exists, but I have certainly had a good distraction from it, and like all bad things it gradually fades away. Today's walk may not have been the cure, but I am sure it has speeded up the fading away process. If I have a good day out tomorrow, and I am sure I will, and if it involves some pleasant boozing, which I can almost take as a certainty, I reckon I will be almost back to normal in time for Work on Wednesday.

 As usual I will be making up a new web page with more about today, and some of the pictures I took. It's too late to start that now, and I doubt I will have time tomorrow, but sometime  in the next few days I'll probably have the page ready and a link to it here.