A peculiar beauty: strolling on a new trail around Kent’s Hoo peninsula

A newly created stretch of the England Coast Path opens up a remote part of the Thames estuary filled with the calls of seabirds

At the water’s edge stands a second world war pillbox, a magnet for hundreds of roosting birds. A flock takes to the wing and, through my binoculars, I make out curlew and brent geese; in the distance a pink container ship slinks slowly along the horizon. There’s no one around, the clarity of the cold morning light on the Thames adding to the sense of remoteness.

I’m on the Isle Grain, at the tip of the Hoo peninsula in north Kent, being introduced to the newest section of the England Coast Path, officially open today (12 January). This 47-mile stretch runs east from the village of Grain to Woolwich and forms part of, eventually, a 2,800-mile national trail around the coast.