North Kent may not be the first place that comes into your mind when thinking of a walk at this time of the year but if you have never walked here before you may be in for some pleasant surprises.

This, after all, is the area where Charles Dickens spent some of his formative early years. Memories of the Medway never left him and he returned to spend the last 13 years of his life at the house he bought near Rochester, Gads Hill Place.

The area was once a tapestry of orchards and hop fields, but now tourism has become a lifeline for the region and two paths, the Saxon Shore Way and the North Downs Way will be of particular interest to walkers.

The Saxon Shore Way follows the Medway, beside the mudflats where the migrating birds winter, as far as the Swale which divides the Kent mainland from the Isle of Sheppey. It then shadows the Swale to Whitstable and beyond.

The North Downs Way follows the chalk ridge across the open country between the Medway towns and Maidstone and then on either to Canterbury or to Folkestone and Dover. You can walk stretches of either path or any of the quiet roads that criss-cross the countryside.