Day 1: Canterbury to Dover

April 14, 2019

I woke at at 5 with the hope of getting out the door by 6 (sunrise was 6:06). I’m not sure what happened, but at 6:15, I was nowhere near close to being ready. Despite practicing packing for weeks, meticulously weighing every item (fyi, my socks weigh 2 ounces), and getting everything ready the night before, I ended up ready at 7am with a pack that weighed 39 pounds (about 20 pounds over my target and 15 pounds away from my practice average. I did a quick cull in 5 minutes and got it down to 36, and figured that would do because I needed to just cut the cord and get a move on.

It was a beautiful cool morning (48 F) with the sun peaking out most of the time. It was scary and exhilarating to finally get out the door, after months of planning, and cut the ‘tether’ to a rooted location.

As I walked out of Canterbury’s town center and joined “Pilgrims Way” (the Via Francigena in the UK overlaps the North Downs Way route), seeing my first official Via Francigena marker (the yellow and blue pilgrim sign in the picture), I kept bubbling up with excitement, evening giggling out loud. 🙂

Rolo and his human companion, Sue, were the first I encountered on my way out to the country. She asked if I was going all the way to Rome and I told her that was the plan.

She said she thought I was brave and wished me a safe journey. Rolo walked with me for a brief stretch.

I passed a few more friendly people out for a Sunday morning stroll and then I was alone surrounded by the beautiful English rolling hills. After the first 4 miles the excitement and adrenaline started to wear off and the reality of the heavy pack started to sink in. It was going to be a long day.

The route from Canterbury to Dover is broken up into two days in the guide, but I’d reasoned that I could easily do 20 miles (based on my normal activity level). If I jumped in and did it, I could then spend the extra day in Dover to get a stamp and deal with adjusting/attending to whatever I learned on that first stretch. I’m really glad I arranged it that way because it gives me all of Monday to do a serious sort of my pack. I am determined to get it down to 20 pounds base weight (i.e., without water).

I can’t say enough good things about the app Footpath. I downloaded it on a whim (most of what I read recommended Pocket Earth, which I have and like, as well). I traced the path from the guidebook into Footpath, so I could reference my phone while I walked. I didn’t realize it, but when I pressed the “record” button to chart the path I actually walked, it synced it up to the path I traced and notified me of every potentially questionable juncture, like when the path forked or had a gate. There were A LOT of gates to negotiate–it seems the path runs through a significant amount of private land that has been shared with with public (or purchased with the stipulation that the public path comes with the property?).

Anyway, I’m getting long-winded about logistics because it was the first day, but overall the two main takeaways for me were joy and pain. I had moments where I was borderline elated and many moments of having to bend over to stretch my back and wonder if I could even do it. It was a fabulous experience, and I’m so excited about the rest of the trip.

Here are a couple pictures from the walk.

If I count “stopping” as taking my pack off (which I am for this journal), I did only stop twice the whole time, which upon reflection is astonishing. I think it was more that I hated the ordeal of taking it off. I did ‘pause’ a bunch to stretch.

I’ll be honest. I was hurting when I limped into Dover. The distance didn’t get me, but the extra weight was a beating on my feet and knees. It was steeply downhill into Dover around 5pm, but I got to walk right past the castle.

And when I finally did get to my hotel I had a room with a balcony looking out at the water, complete with pigeon friends. 😉

All in all it was a terrific first day. Though I’m looking forward to some healing time for my knees and feet tomorrow.