It was sooooo hot today. Blue sky and 30°C. Only bearable whilst we are cycling and generating air flow 🙄. However it was a good cycling day. As we started out from Gravesend there was a “happening”. A couple of fire ships were shootings plumes of water in the air, the band of the Royal Marines (well 6 of them) were playing music by the town pier, and - we discovered - the Commonwealth Games baton was crossing on the small passenger ferry from Gravesend to Essex through the water arches.

Onwards through the outskirts of Gravesend and we faffed around through some thorough dodgy workshops (piles of tyres, broken glass, collapsing asbestos sheds) only to discover at the end of a long narrow path which was gated at the far end to stop cyclists entering from the other direction, that the route had been rerouted along the roads because of tyres/glass/collapsing sheds - except no such notice in the direction we were travelling. So we had to backtrack past tyres/broken glass etc to take the road bypassing the dodgy workshops 🙄🙄.

Anyway we approached Rochester via Upnor Castle built to defend Royal Naval Dockyard on the opposite bank of the Medway. Impressive building, village and view. Down the hill and across the river took us into Rochester. Coffee and topped up my water bottle - only to leave it on café table 🙄🤦‍♂️.

Tortuous slow progress through Rochester and Chatham to get past Fort and Dockyards and new business park etc along pavements, pelican crossings. Bought lunch at Asda 🙄 and ate in the Strand Park on far side of Chatham (phew).

Route took us on gravel tracks through some marshes until Sittingbourne. Then back to pavements, pelican crossings, dual carriageways in blistering heat. Slow stuff.

Then lots of countryside, Oast houses, apple orchards, hop fields and farms. Until Faversham. Gosh it’s hot. We stop by a pub for drinks and salty crisps and recover ourselves for final push to Whitstable. We decide to bypass the gravel marsh track route and take the direct country road to Whitstable. The hotel is on the highest point for miles around 🙄🙄 nowhere near beachfront. But we are hot and tired and need a shower and beer 👌🏻👌🏻😃😃

Once again staying in an excellent Premier Inn that lets us put our bikes in the room and has handy rack over the bath to dry washing on . And they have extra pillows, a bath , are relatively cheap and made us porridge for breakfast - not sure French hotels will offer all that but we can hope