Walking

I love a good walk.

Ever since I was a child I enjoyed going down to town with my mum every Saturday; a couple of miles or so there and back. When I was around 14 years old I started going for short walks on Sunday mornings; nothing too strenuous, nowhere particularly special, just for the fun of the walk. We'd go on the occasional country walk as a family, again nothing too long, a couple of hours out in rural Kent. But on the 30th June 2011, I stepped off a train at West Brompton*, ready to begin a walk to Woolwich Arsenal*, nearly 16 miles away. It was longer than anything I'd done before; I had no map to guide me, just a vague sense of direction, east along the river. It took me almost 7 hours, and I was exhausted by the end of it. Little did I realise it was the start of something big for me.

Since that first walk, I've recorded over 50 walks of varying distances, from a couple of miles up to over 20. I've walked from A to B, I've done circular walks, but mainly I've walked transport related walks: the Underground (more on that at some point), pre-2015 Overground, DLR and Tramlink, and even a National Rail route. I've walked the Thames from Maidenhead to the estuary, and this year I'm planning to walk the London Loop (this is the project I mentioned in the last post). Overall I have over 700 miles worth of walking logged, around 10 and half days of my life spent pounding the pavements.

Which begs the question: why? To that I say: why not? Walking is the best way to see somewhere as it really is, to explore properly, to experience fleetingly the lives of everyone who lives in a place you're merely passing through. My walks have taken me to locations I never would have gone to in any other circumstance, some fantastic, some not quite so. Everywhere I've visited I'm glad I have, regardless of how good or bad it was, to experience the novelty of a new area, an unexplored neighbourhood, the idea of "I wonder what's round here?".

Work means I no longer have the freedom of days unfilled to pursue this most ancient of pastimes; nevertheless I shall carry on walking whenever I can, and starting now, I'll be sharing it with you as well.

*- These stations chosen because at the time I had free rail travel to both stations as a result of my dad working on the railways, in case you wondered why I chose two such random points!

An introduction...

Ah, the awkward second post. Much like trying to write the follow up to the first hit single, it can be difficult to ensure you write something of similarly excellent quality to that stellar opening post.

Except I don't have that problem, because my first post was a load of rambling nonsense really. So whatever I write today doesn't have to be particularly brilliant to be better, which takes some of that crushing pressure off. Good job really, because today's post is intended to be a bit more of an introduction to me, my way of letting you get to know who I am in some small sense, and these sorts of posts are always a bit self-indulgent and therefore a bit crap. Never mind.

So, what to tell you about myself? What to reveal, what to keep a closely guarded secret? Let's start off with my name. No, not my real name; that's going to remain one of those aforementioned secrets. Nope, I'm talking about my blog name, Travelling Man of Kent. This should immediately tell you 3 things about me:

1. I do some amount of travelling
2. I am a man
3. I am from or live in Kent

See, this is going swimmingly, isn't it? But that's all surface information; let's delve a little deeper. Take for instance "Man of Kent" which, if you know your Kentish history, you'll know means I was born east of the River Medway (and if you didn't, well now you do). One could ask what sort of travelling I do, and I'd tell you I like trains, and walking, and any and all London transport (more on all of that at some point). You might even be aware of an obscure card game, which is where the "Travelling Man" comes from (my 1st year of university [another fact about me!{aren't embedded brackets fun}]).

Well I think that's quite enough to be getting on with for now; really, the best way to get to know me is to read this blog (wink wink nudge nudge).

P.S. Starting a project tomorrow, more later (maybe...)

The First One...

I've done it. I've taken the plunge into the murky world of online blogging. At half past 3 in the morning. Who needs sleep?

I do actually; I've got work in the afternoon, and given the fact I fell asleep on the train home tonight, I would think I need a bit more sleep than what I got last night. Anyway, enough rambling on about sleep. Let's talk blogging. What's this blog about, I hear you wonder? (Who am I talking to, nobody's going to read this). What's this guy got to offer that others don't?

Nothing. Bugger all. Everything I write about will probably have been written about before, by someone else on a much more popular blog; so why bother? I'm bothering because this blog is as much for me as it is for anyone who wants to read my thoughts on travelling, walking, London, music, Kent, commuting, trains, maps, photography, the Underground and anything else I fancy writing about (aha, answered that first question now). I can't even promise you daily posts; in fact, I'm ruling that out from the start. I'm not promising quality, wit, or even particularly interesting content. What I can promise is posts about stuff that I find interesting, and hopefully some of the time at least it'll be interesting to other people as well. There'll be a lot of pictures, quite a few quizzes and even a sprinkling of some good old British moaning from time to time.

Well, I really must get to bed; I don't think I am going to get any more sleep than I did last night...

Ah well.