A return to documenting these rides, a p*ss poor show, and I need to keep on top of it.

2020, a review and update on the progress through the year on my self imposed challenge to ride all the byways and bridleways in Kent.

I need to really give myself a kick up the arse to record this properly and capture the details at the time, forgetting the small details after the event is inevitable.

2019 ended with a slow down in riding, fell ill with the dreaded cough/cold for the end of Dec/Start of Jan, on reflection it could have been Covid related, but we'll never know.

So riding resumed on Jan 18th to start filling in the gaps in the map and the trails in the county I have still yet to cover.

I chose Yorkletts country park as the start here, free parking in the small car park, and it has good access. 

Yorkletts OS info

From Yorkletts it's wet and cold country lanes, left, and south towards Dargate, over the common and onto Denstroude Road, on the right is the entrance to the first bridleway.

This rolls nicely on a gravel surface until the start of the woods proper, then it all turned to crappy mud, and more mud, the leaves and raid and horses made for a shitty slow slog through the mire, out the other side around Bossenden Farm and out onto road. It's one of many trails through Blean woods, well worth a visit (but probably in the better weather).

Slow progress up the hill to Dunkirk, past the village hall, and towards Boughton, on the right opposite Jays Wood is the next bridleway through Clay Pits Wood. It looks like a driveway, but leads to the trail. 

This is a great short ride, muddy in the winter but a great sweeping downhill to the road. The view as you exit the woods takes in The Swale over Graveney. 

From here at the road junction go straight over onto the next trail, another bridleway over Holly Hill.

Holly Hill has two bridleways, and I've covered the right hand fork previously, the left hand one takes you in a long downhill curve, at this time of year through sparsely covered trees and mud, and out onto the road. I now too the opportunity to grab some missing tiles and took a road section through Graveney and out to the coast, along the coastal path and into Seasalter, there's an odd restricted byway (Sunray Avenue) running through the middle of the town, which needed to be covered. 

It runs easterly and out to Joy Lane, then it's a trawl through the traffic and up the hill our of Whitstable, over the A299 and up Clapham Hill on the right, just past Willow Road is the next bridleway.

This one is more grassy and muddy, but a nice trail between hedges, out onto open fields and then onto the small lane at Wraik Hill, left alone the lane to Fox's Cross Road, and onto the trail leading into Ellenden Wood, I've just this section to complete the bridleways through this wood and it proved to be a git, slow and muddy and poorly sign posted.

The beginning is up a grassy, muddy field, well used by horses, and wet, thoroughly bogged. At the top it leads into the woods, and I follow this through and out (via a unmapped shortcut) to the Yorkletts park again, this was also a wet and boggy trail, with plenty of pushing and swearing, but finally back to the car park, to finish, and take stock!!

More trails covered, an incentive to get back out, and some veloviewer tiles taken too.