This stretch of over 25 miles offers coastal walking through the seaside towns of Ramsgate, Broadstairs, Margate, Westgate, Birchington, Herne Bay and Whitstable.
This stretch starts in the seaside town of Ramsgate, which has the UK’s only Royal Harbour, and the UK’s largest network of civilian wartime tunnels. The trail takes you past the entrance to the tunnels as you walk beside Ramsgate Main Sands. Following the Grade II listed cliff stairs up to the clifftop, you pass beautiful rock gardens. Then through the King George VI Memorial Park with its 19th Century Italianate Glasshouse and tearoom, and where you will hear the ring-necked parakeets.
Along the chalk clifftop to Broadstairs, part of the longest continuous stretch of coastal chalk in Britain, you can see France across the channel on a clear day. At Broadstairs you pass the promenade overlooking popular Viking Bay and go downhill towards the harbour. Here you will see Bleak House, Charles Dicken’s holiday home, sitting above the clifftop. At Broadstairs Harbour you’ll spot turnstones, a bird well known to this part of the coast, which return each winter.
Carrying along the undercliff promenade beside Stone Bay beach, one of the Isle of Thanet’s 10 award winning beaches, the trail goes up to the clifftop again. You walk along the clifftop and will see the lighthouse built in 1691 as you near Joss Bay. There is a new footpath as you reach Kingsgate, and you will see Kingsgate Castle and Kingsgate Bay with its majestic chalk arch. The path then follows the clifftops towards Botany Bay, famous for its chalk stacks.
The path continues to Margate, one of the old seaside resorts in the country and home to the Turner Contemporary gallery. You pass one of the oldest- surviving amusement parks in the country which features a Grade II* listed wooden rollercoaster.
The trail passes quieter sandy beaches at Westgate and Birchington and then follows the Northern Sea Wall. This stretch is flat bordered by shingle beach and grazing marsh and you can see coastal and marshland birds including marsh harriers. New fencing has been installed around the saline lagoons next to the sea wall to provide safer nesting and roosting spaces for birds such as avocet and ringed plover. And newly installed information panels help identify the wildlife. You then you go past Reculver Towers, one of the earliest Roman Forts built against Saxon raids.
Between Reculver Country Park towards Herne Bay, the path follows clifftop grassland which provides spectacular views out to sea. Sand martins that nest in the holes in the cliffs at Bishopstone can be seen flying above the path.
The trail then reaches Herne Bay with its historic pier, picturesque seafront, and distinctive 80-foot Victorian clock tower. Continuing past Tankerton, and the pretty multi-coloured beach huts, you arrive at Whitstable, a picturesque seaside town, famous for its oysters.
For more information about the King Charles III England Coast Path, visit the National Trails website.