Bikepacking - Isle of Sheppey

 This weekend, I headed east to the Isle of Sheppey, an island off the coast of the east of England in the county of Kent. My destination was a farm right on the east coast of the island which offers "close to wild" camping, with minimal facilities (a tap and a compost toilet!) and lots and lots of space. When I booked, it was summer and I'd chosen to camp right on the clifftops. On the day though..... well, it was most certainly no longer summer! It was Autumn (Fall) and the further east I got on the 65 mile ride, the windier and windier it got. When I arrived it was blowing at least 40mph and there was no way I could pitch my tent on the cliffs. So instead, I camped in woods about 100 metres back from the cliffs. Sheltered enough but still pretty windy!

Outbound route and stats

My legs did OK on the outbound ride although there was an off-road section after about 40 miles that was a complete nightmare. Impossible to cycle, with rocks the size of my fist all over the trail and a steep 17% section I had to push the bike up, with great difficulty it has to be said. 

And the wind did take it's toll, no question.

The nightmare trail - 17%!

Crossing to the Isle of Sheppey by the old bridge to the right of the newer, faster road

After pitching the tent and hanging wet (sweat!) clothes out to air and dry, I lit a camp fire and ate dinner.

I had a pretty good night in the tent. With some merino wool thermal underwear and my silk sleeping bag liner, I was more than warm enough, so that's an improvement on the last trip. I believe it was colder on this night too.

I did well navigating using my battery saving hand-written paper summary, this trip and only used my smartphone when necessary. The combination of the two techniques works well, assuming you've summarised the route in writing carefully. I used the maps.me app this trip. It works well and the route is very clear, especially since I'd edited the KML file to make the colour of the route a nice, high contrast black. The only issue I found was that once in foreground, the screen no longer times out, even with no interaction with the phone. This is convenient for sure, but not good if you really want to conserve your battery, so I had to show the home screen of my Android device manually, every time after consulting maps.me, so that the screen would then timeout and sleep. Maybe there's a setting....

My return journey was hard. It was still very windy and early on, it was raining too. Just keeping going was a real challenge.... but of course I did. It was slow and strength sapping. I suspect I didn't drink enough, which couldn't have helped. 

Somewhere nice in Kent

Return journey route and stats

I'm now seriously reconsidering my packing list. Can I reduce weight but still have all that I believe I truly need? Time will tell.

Until the next time!