London to Amsterdam - Day 4 - Danbury to Maldon

Rating: 4.2 / 5

Distance: 15.1 miles

This is the fourth day of my longest hiking adventure yet. I am hiking from London to Amsterdam.

The hike in England was completed over five weekends in July and August, then during my annual leave in late August I caught a ferry to The Netherlands and hiked the remainder of the journey to Amsterdam.

I hiked 15 miles from Danbury to Maldon on day four. I joined the picturesque River Chelmer path. The river was a lot more scenic than I expected. I passed a World War 2 pillbox by one lock. I guess they were worried about the Germans coming up the river during the war.

There were heaps and heaps of people out on paddleboards, but I also saw plenty of kayakers and boaters. It was an extremely popular river.

There were a few small sections of the river that had a lot of canal and sailing boats. Paper Mill Lock was great.

I arrived at Maldon at high tide. Maldon is one of the oldest towns in Essex. Two large sail boats were coming back to land in Maldon while I was by the promenade. I walked to the end of the promenade, where there is a picturesque statue of an Anglo Saxon leader that died at the battle of Maldon in 991AD (Statue of Blythnorth).

I bought some chips by the Promenade Park and while I was eating them I realised I had just missed the infrequent bus back to Danbury. I waited over an hour for the next bus at a bar on the high street. However annoyingly the next bus never turned up! Turns out it wasn't stopping at the high street bus stop today, which I found out was due to a road closure further up the road.

I ended up getting an Uber as I didn't fancy waiting 2 hours for the next bus. A guy called Muhammed who was based in Chelmsford picked me up.

To watch a short film of my London to Amsterdam hike see the video (that is below the photos) Cheers :)