To the Sea
I walked this section in five days over the course of six months in 2022.
I could have compressed the time it took, but I preferred to wait for free weekends with good weather; travel times added to my days, and when walking I wanted to enjoy every moment (plus one day was cut short by being bitten by a dog).
I wonder too if there was a secret desire never to reach the sea, because then there would be no more Thames.
I’ve chosen to describe the journey in two stages: Woolwich to Gravesend, and Gravesend to Grain. This is because, to my mind, there are two distinct parts of the Thames/Coastal Path route, which follows the South bank of the Thames to the mouth of the Thames estuary.
The first part-Woolwich to Gravesend-involves walking in the environs of London alongside the Thames’ rich history and industrial heritage, in the middle of an ever-changing urban environment (old industries and buildings in decline, new ones springing up). At times, when walking next to busy roads or passing large sites under development, this is not a particuarly pleasant experience. But I found it fascinating and rewarding: I saw parts of London and aspects of the city I would never have explored otherwise. For example, on Easter weekend I discovered an unusual WWI war memorial in the middle of a large industrial site, then found myself walking alongside a long line of huge container lorries parked up adjacent to Ebbsfleet International Station, their drivers whiling away the long hours of waiting in the sun.
The second part-Gravesend to Grain-is very different. You leave the city behind, and the Hoo Peninsula opens up before you, with its flat marshes, creeks and fields, interspersed with deserted forts and remnants of wartime munitions sites. Apart from a large quarry at Cliffe, and the towering cranes of London Gateway port on the opposite bank of the estuary, one is out in the open, in nature, walking eastwards along a protective sea wall, the adjacent Thames gradually widening with your every step on a shared journey to the sea.
Part One: Woolwich to Gravesend
18 miles/19km
In 2018 I had walked and paddled from the source in Gloucestershire to the Thames Barrier in London fundraising for an apprenticeship at The AHOY Centre charity. I finished my journey, with AHOY apprentices as crewmates, in a small rowing skiff bouncing on a muddy, rippling tidal Thames below the embankment walls of Royal Arsenal at Woolwich.
Four years later, I took a train to Woolwich, walking through streets wrapped in February gloom, to Royal Arsenal, where I had ended my journey in 2018 in that small boat bobbing on the tidal Thames. Now on dry land on the other side of the same embankment wall, I wandered for a while, watching children playing in the open spaces near the river. For centuries this place was home to gun emplacements, ordnance factories and artillery storage. After WWII parts of this huge site were sold off for development and to build the new town of Thamesmead; eventually, it lost its military status in 1994. Still being developed for residential, commercial and community use, there are reminders everywhere of Royal Arsenal’s origins: old cannons, classical institutional architecture, solid brick warehouses, smaller utilitarian buildings, signage displaying names with military associations (Duke of Wellington Avenue, Gun Carriage Walk, Victory Parade).
At the embankment wall I looked upriver towards the Thames Barrier, its distinctive raised cylindrical gates a distant, dull gleam against a backdrop of towers and high-rises at Canary Wharf and the City. Nearby, the Woolwich Ferry docked, unloading a fresh load of passengers and vehicles from across the river. As February gloom gave way to wintry sun I turned eastwards on the Thames Path, towards the sea.
On reinforced embankments beside the river were further reminders of the area’s military past: still, silent cannons poised facing the river, as if waiting for invasion; a decaying pillbox, once in the first line of defence, now teetering precariously on the edge of the river. At Tripcock Point the red-painted warning beacon of Margaret Ness stood out against a brightening sky, with the huge square arch of Barking Creek flood barrier looming on the opposite bank of the river. Beyond Tripcock Point sailing vessels bound for London were forbidden to carry anchors cable-hung ready to let go (‘a cock-bill’ or ‘cock billed’). And near here, tragically, in 1878 The Princess Alice pleasure steamer sank on Gallions Reach, with about 640 lives lost, mainly Londoners returning home from a day trip to the seaside. I had read about The Princess Alice disaster in quite a few books about the Thames; looking down into the swirling water breaking onto huge boulders below, I imagined the victims, lacking lifebelts or buoyancy aids, their cumbersome, sodden Victorian clothes dragging them under helplessly.
About 2 miles on, at Crossness Point another warning beacon stood tall and strong against the stiffening breeze, field-poppy-red against a now-blue sky. The river, turned from grey-brown to reflected blue, bristled with waves in the strengthening wind. At intervals old wooden jetties protruded out into the river-what will become of these intricate, decaying structures, once integral to the Thames as a working river, now surpassed by the enormous pontoons and berths serving huge, modern vessels on an industrial scale?
As you edge away from London the ever-increasing commercial and industrial infrastructure around the Thames is striking. Shiny Crossness sewage treatment works, enormous Cory Riverside waste station, and Amazon’s vast distribution centre near Dartford, loom large and enigmatic, shrinking the past, dominating the present, presaging the future. At Crossness I peered through railings at the Victorian pumping station that was once an integral part of Bazalgette’s Victorian sewage system, its powerful steam-powered engines now still and silent; but the unmistakeable odour of a sewage treatment works lingers unchanged.
Towards Dartford the tall white towers of the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge began to loom in the distance. This is the last bridge over the Thames, opened by the late Queen Elizabeth II in October 1991, it soars over the river in a huge swooping curve, which was for a short time the longest single span bridge in Europe. Traffic on the bridge flows from Essex on the North side of the river, to Kent on the South side, while the older Dartford Tunnel beneath the Thames, opened in 1963, takes traffic in the other direction. I had driven over the bridge a few times and on each occasion was intrigued to know what lay beneath. So, reaching the bridge, and walking under it, was a destination in itself.
To get there the path follows a long detour around the River Darent, which meanders through Erith, Crayford and Dartford marshes before it rejoins the Thames. On these marshes nature exists cheek-by-jowl with industry and commerce: a huge recycling facility at Darent industrial park reaches the very banks of the river, growling dirt bikes roar along tracks concealed among the reeds, and motor reclamation yards occupy former agricultural buildings. The Dartford Creek flood barrier-a huge concrete arch straddling the River Darent-stands poised, ready to lower its defensive flood gates to protect Dartford against high tides. And once you’ve eventually crossed the Darent on a busy road bridge, you descend to the marshes again, this time with the Dartford Clay shooting club to contend with: I’m convinced I felt spent shot raining down on my rucksack as I passed (this was not the only hazard I encountered: out here I was bitten by a dog-necessitating an early retreat from my walk that day).
Below: views of Erith, Crayford and Dartford marshes; Dartford Creek flood barrier
When I reached The Queen Elizabeth II Bridge, it did not disappoint. The Thames Path passes directly underneath, right next to the river. There’s a dramatic view of the foundations of the two towers and supporting abutments, and up towards the bridge-deck high above. It’s impressive, and strangely reassuring to feel the strength and resilience of this gigantic concrete structure encompassing you, the river flowing silently through it, the traffic rumbling relentlessly overhead. And I felt a frisson of excitement, knowing that this was the last bridge-crossing over the Thames: beyond it lies the sea.
IThe Queen Elizabeth II Bridge did not disappoint
After the bridge came a succession of warehouses, freight and distribution centres; at one, I walked under a huge enclosed conveyor belt running to a riverside pontoon. As the Thames curves around the Swanscombe peninsula, a towering electricity pylon stands tall and erect, bearing cables high over the river. Here, the Path cuts through marshes, pasture and reedbeds. Once home to large cement works, Swanscombe Marshes are now home to 1,991 species of invertebrates, more than any known site in the country-and yet, so close to London. The Marshes have been designated as an SSSI (site of special scientific interest), but are still under threat through proposals for a theme park on the site.
I scrambled up a steep embankment of grass and scrub, for views of Tilbury Docks on the opposite side of the river. A huge container ship berthed for unloading, others moored, waiting. Clanking machinery echoed around the hollows of the ship and dockyards, floating across the river towards me.
Back on the marshes I met two bird-watchers who advised me to listen out for a Cetti’s warbler (later, I heard one, helped by a birdsong app). Then came croaking frogs at a pond on the edge of Botany marshes, where you exit the site-suddenly finding yourself amongst Northfleet’s large commercial and industrial buildings. It was here that I walked next to a long line of huge container lorries parked up adjacent to Ebbsfleet International Station, their drivers idle, waiting in the sun.
On a vast site intersected by the Thames Path, I stumbled upon the unusual Bevan Cement Works War Memorial, where Britannia sits alone but resolute, commemorating the 30 employees of the cement works who lost their lives in WWI. Most served as privates in the Royal West Kent Regiment, their job titles on the plaque ('trimmer, trotter, horse driver, cooper, warehouse boy') serving as a reminder of their lives as civilians, and their youth.
Above: Swanscombe peninsula
Below: Bevan Cement works, the pylon at Swanscombe, Swanscombe marshes, Tilbury Docks
After a long, tedious detour to avoid a housing development, I was relieved to be reunited with the Thames in the outskirts of Gravesend. On the foreshore an ebb tide had created a landscape in miniature from the river’s saline mud-flats: hills, plateaux, ridges and valleys of rivulets glistening green-brown in the sun. On the riverside, residential buildings began to dominate, interrupted with reminders of the past: an obsolete crane, the Victorian Royal Terrace Pier, now the home of Gravesend Lifeboat Station.
Gravesend’s strategic importance to London and the Thames feels long-forgotten, overtaken by the London Docks in the nineteenth century, and more recently Tilbury Docks and London Gateway port. But for centuries the town was hugely important: it was the last port of departure from London, the first port of landing from overseas, a fishing centre, and guardian of the Thames estuary: one of the keys of defence against Viking raids, later fortified by Henry VIII. Gravesend was the maritime gateway to London, where customs dues were collected, and arriving dignitaries greeted ceremoniously. From here, in 1786 George III’s three sons Princes Ernest, Augustus and Adolphus departed in grandeur on the royal yacht Augusta, to pursue their education at Gottingen University (Prince Augustus’ subsequent disastrous illegal marriage in Rome to Lady Augusta Murray is described in Julia Abel Smith’s marvellous Forbidden Wife); five years later thirty convicts from Maidstone prison embarked at Gravesend-in far less grandeur-for Botany Bay.
The town’s fortifications, civic buildings, churches, pubs and statues reflect its maritime history, and the present too: it’s still the operational base for the Port of London Authority (or PLA), vessels still use the Town Pier, and there’s a ferry across the Thames to Tilbury Fort. There’s a rowing club and a sailing club; the town promenade is still a place where friends and families gather and stroll by the Thames, as they were when I was there, on a warm Easter Saturday in April, waves lapping at the water’s edge.
Leaving the promenade, I was confronted with yet another Kent CC diversion, this time around the Thames and Medway Canal and over a railway line, to rejoin the river on the east side of Gravesend at the PLA’s Denton Wharf building. A collection of huge, rusted old anchors appeared behind some railings. Stepping back up on to the path, suddenly the strong protective wall next to the Thames no longer felt like a river embankment, but a sea wall. As if to confirm this, there’s a small pub here right at the edge of the estuary: ‘The Ship and Lobster’.
Gravesend to Grain
27 miles/43.5km
Soon after The Ship and Lobster my surroundings changed. I stepped away from the concreted path sheltered by adjacent buildings and overhanging vegetation, onto a grassed footpath with an expanse of fields and marshes stretching far ahead, the river directly on my left. This was the beginning of the Hoo Peninsula; and this open aspect of uninterrupted views-East towards the end of the estuary, London behind me in the West, Essex to the North across the river, and Kent on my right to the South-would be the feature of my journey for the next approximately 25 miles.
The river is about half a mile wide at Gravesend; as I was walking on clear, sunny days I had good views across to Essex: glimpses of bright yellow oilseed rape fields, the gently sloping Langdon Hills beyond, and, far into the distance ahead, the hazy outlines of London Gateway port. On the South bank of the estuary, at times I was walking on grassy, unprotected river bank, right next to the mud-flats and sandbanks below; but mostly the path follows a protective sea wall, at places sometimes little more than a few rocks, at others raised and strengthened with boulders and concrete. But even with such defences, these are exposed reaches of the Thames: invariably with a strong wind chopping the estuary into white horses, buffeting wind against tide, making me return home wind-blown at the end of the day.
At times I was walking on grassy, unprotected river bank
The path passes a rifle range used by Gravesend’s Metropolitan Police Training Academy; beyond lies Shornemead Fort. Standing prominently at the end of Gravesend reach, it’s one of three nineteenth-century artillery emplacements, positioned defensively in triangular formation towards Lower Hope Point, where the Thames bends sharply, giving long views up and downriver in both directions. I could see one of the other two forts-Coalhouse Fort-on the opposite Essex shore, and would later walk past Cliffe Fort further along the Kent shoreside. Shornemead itself is long-abandoned and now in ruins; once home to garrisons of troops, with their own swimming pool, nowadays it serves as a shelter for bikers and joyriders among graffiti-decorated walls.
Beyond Shornemead, at Higham Bight where there’s a curve in the shoreline, a red and white navigation tower planted firmly in the river bed was a reminder that, despite the holiday sunshine and sea air, I was walking next to a busy shipping lane: the receding tide revealed hazardous shallows and sandbanks. To my right, creeks and ditches cut across Higham marshes, sheep and cattle grazing in the distance. Then the path turned abruptly along a spit of land towards the river, following Higham Creek through bush and scrub to a huge gravel works at the end, where Cliffe Fort is tucked away behind mountains of sand, stone and gravel piled high next to the path. The fort stands sad, splendid, inaccessible; marooned in pools of water.
An old slipway once used for launching Brennan torpedoes, and fragile, disused jetties are all that’s left of the fort's function as a military stronghold.
Towards Cliffe village the path passes saltwater pool nature reserves-former gravel pits-traversed by tracks and trails enclosed by high hedgerows. Then the path returns to an easterly direction, following the sea wall far away from any village or settlement.
Alone out here there is a sense of walking on the cusp of two worlds: the Thames riverscape and saltings on the left, full of wind, water, mud and sand; the flat Hoo landscape to the right, with marshes, ditches, creeks, cattle and sheep grazing in fields, the gentle rise of a ridge beyond. When the path dipped into shelter from the wind, common blue butterflies flickered at my feet, and one day in late Summer I picked blackberries at the edge of a field as I walked back from the river for my transport home.
The long walk eastwards following a desolate estuary shoreline could be a tedious trudge. As it’s a lengthy nearly two-mile walk from the nearest road or parking spot, you have to be a pretty serious runner or walker, or have an energetic dog needing exercise, or have time to spare, if you are to venture out across the isolated marshes to the sea wall. Occasionally I came across other people: fellow walkers, a father and son going fishing, two men in camouflage gear heavily burdened with rucksacks, a farmer. But mostly I was alone, accompanied by the sun and wind, container ships intermittently edging along the river, gulls overhead. At times it was hard going: in the sunshine with no shelter or shade, just seemingly endless walking on a hard track, once soft and grassy, now hardened into mud-baked ridges by Summer's heat.
But I never tired of this, because there is so much to see, and so much to consider.
The isolated marshes are crosscut by creeks and ditches stretching crookedly across the landscape like a giant’s jigsaw. Here, in Dickens’ Great Expectations Magwitch hid from his pursuers in wintry fog after fleeing from his prison ship, and was found and befriended by Pip. Such prison ships-the hulks of decommissioned, dismasted warships-were in use as floating prisons on the Thames and elsewhere for about 80 years until the mid-nineteenth century.
I passed extraordinary deserted cordite-manufacturing buildings from the WWI Curtis and Harvey chemical explosives factory. Once these were part of a large industrial works of national importance, with easy access to London and nearby shipping routes, but on open, flat land away from any settlement. Now, the buildings loom like ghosts from the surrounding fields.
My map featured some wonderful names: ‘Whalebone Marshes…SheepWash…Bessie’s Lane’; and ‘Swigshole’ (sometimes spelt Snagshole) meaning ‘snake-infested muddy pool’. And there were further reminders of the Hoo Peninsula’s long association with the military and its role as defender of the Thames estuary: Decoy Fleet, and Decoy Hill, which I walked down on my last day on the peninsula
There’s also the interest of London Gateway port, its four large quayside cranes on the opposite bank of the Thames quickly becoming a familiar landmark in the distance.
As you gradually approach London Gateway the cranes become ever larger and more prominent, until you can see them directly opposite, towering over the estuary at 138m tall, as high as the London Eye. From your vantage point on the Kent side of the estuary you can see huge container ships docked in their deepwater berths built to handle the world’s largest vessels. Stacking cranes, warehouses, and dockyard buildings cluster around the dockside, the oil storage tanks at Coryton Oil Refinery lining the Essex riverside beyond. Just as at Tilbury Docks, the cranking, banging and groans of heavy machinery drifted across the river.
It was deeply distressing to see the vast amounts of plastic debris that had also drifted across, and along, the river. But this was not the only place: all the way from Woolwich Arsenal I had been confronted with the horrible sight of discarded plastic bottles and endless plastic items of every description (from tiny, brightly-coloured children’s toys to huge, heavy-duty industrial hardware) carried by the estuary current, beached by the receding tide or captured on groynes and fences.
These items-they can’t all be accidental flotsam? They are not only unsightly, they are pollutants too. I found it depressing-how can we ever turn back this plastic tide?
How can we ever turn back this plastic tide?
The path curved around an inlet, Egypt Bay-possibly derived from nearby Egypt Marsh Farm, now lost to the surrounding marshes and saltings (the area once traded with the eastern Mediterranean, as Phoenician artefacts have been found in this part of Kent). Here, part of Decoy Fleet runs parallel to the shoreline below the raised embankment of the sea wall.
Then came a second, much larger inlet-St. Mary’s Bay. As I walked the tide drew back, exposing mainly salty mud-flats. But at intervals small sandy coves began to appear, tempting me to scramble down on to the shingle and tiny beach below, to abandon my walking boots and go barefoot on the sand. But I resisted, wanting to save the experience for when I was even closer to the sea. So, I pressed on, grateful to find some shade in the shelter of a small concrete building belonging to the Environment Agency, whose flood protection and water management schemes are scattered around the marshes.
The estuary was widening gradually but relentlessly. The bright, white buildings of Canvey Island in Essex on the opposite shore seemed small and faraway. Container ships which had earlier ploughed along the river like mighty galleons now glided slowly past, each like a small Coleridge ‘painted ship upon a painted ocean’, as they inched towards a distant horizon.
A pillbox stood sentinel on the edge of the saltings, bringing to mind the pillbox I had seen at the edge of the infant Thames at Lechlade, so many miles away. Then the path turned inland across the marshes, crossing a deep ditch and edging around some fields, emerging back on to the sea wall in the outskirts of All Hallows.
It was Sunday 18th September 2022, and in keeping with the nation’s period of mourning for the death of Queen Elizabeth II, the flag at All Hallows Yacht Club was flying at half-mast
All Hallows is best known for its development as a holiday village in the 1930s, although the settlement is much, much older, with a church dating from the twelfth century.
I walked past a series of wooden groynes sloping down from the sea wall onto a wide beach of shingle and sand. Past the curve of a small headland, you come to the holiday park. From what I had read I was expecting a series of terrible eyesores and a hostile reception from grumpy holidaymakers. But there was something appealing in the brilliant white cabins parked on bright green grass facing the sea, and a relaxed, friendly end-of-season feeling of life slowing down for the Autumn. I liked the sensation of being tucked away here towards the end of the peninsula, seemingly far away from the rest of Kent and London, and from Essex across the water.
To begin with the path beyond All Hallows was busy with dog walkers and families enjoying the Sunday morning sunshine, but as I struck out further along the sea wall towards another curve in the shoreline they slipped away, turning back to All Hallows, or out on to the marshes.
Soon I was again walking alone, arriving at Yantlet Creek just as I had planned: to coincide with low water. The Creek cuts across the end of the Hoo Peninsula, flowing into a small enclosed bay of the Thames estuary where-according to Ian Tokelove of Remote London- it’s a ‘jumpable stream’ at low tide. My legs are much shorter than Ian’s but I was determined to try this jump, because it’s the only way to reach the London Stone, a stone obelisk which used to mark the limits of the City of London’s jurisdiction over riparian water-rights on the Thames.
The Stone stands on the edge of the estuary across the creek, the Southern of two markers (the other being the Crow Stone in Essex), drawing an imaginary boundary line across the Thames. To me, as a Londoner, it felt as if this was where I would really be starting to reach the sea
Yantlet Creek, a 'jumpable stream'
I am aware, from paddleboarding on the Tideway, how fast and furious the tide can be. Although Yantlet Creek seemed just a gentle rivulet trickling through mudflats into the distant river receding with the tide, I knew that once the tide turned this harmless stream would quickly fill with the flood tide and become dangerously impassable.
I had fifteen minutes until low water. Scrambling down from the path, I crossed soft, dense grass, then slippery seaweed, then sticky mud. Managing to find a foothold on some gravel, I launched myself in an ungainly, splashing lurch across the creek-giggling with excited relief when I reached the other side in safety.
I followed a sandy beach to the London Stone, standing on stony ground on the edge of the intertidal zone, in windy, wide open space beneath wide open sky: I was thrilled to have reached this landmark milestone. As I returned to Yantlet Creek I found two beautiful sun-bleached shells-companion treasures to the small glass flask of spring water which I had bottled at the source of the Thames.
Having retraced my steps and repeated my ungainly lurch across the creek, as the tide turned I settled down to enjoy my sandwiches out of the wind, next to a small, simple brick and stone monument overloooking the creek. It is dedicated to John Hammond: artist, teacher, naturalist and conservationist, and a member of the Dickens Country Protection Society (which still exists). Reminding me of the dangers I had been so keen to avoid, the monument records Hammond’s tragic death in 1975 aged 37, drowned when visiting Yantlet Creek and its beach “beloved by him”. A smaller, later plaque records the death of his sculptor wife Julie, only six years later.
I left the beach at Yantlet Creek, and the nearby remains of wooden Black Widow Beacon decaying in the sand.
Turning south across the peninsula with the creek to my left, ahead there arose from fields and marshes vast, grey skeleton buildings outlined against the skyline: the remains of Grain and Kingsnorth power stations, once oil and coal-fired power stations, decommissioned and largely destroyed. Now the site is a combined cycle gas turbine generating plant, with large cylindrical gasholders as adjacent storage. I walked under towering pylons carrying electricity away from its source and out across the grid.
It was odd to be walking here, so close to major energy infratructure, yet still, so remote.
Inland, Yantlet Creek was bordered by rushes and reeds goldened by sun. At a farm on the opposite bank a barn was stacked high with haybales harvested after the long, hot summer-the hottest on record.
Beyond, a few fields and open grassland of the Isle of Grain-a confusing name, since it’s no longer an island, and it’s not associated with grain.
Yantlet Creek originally cut across the tip of the Hoo Peninsula, dividing the Isle of Grain from the rest of the promontory. But the creek silted up, and there’s now a large grassed causeway at the end of the creek. I crossed the causeway to reach the village of Grain-whose name derives from old English ‘greon’, meaning ‘gravelly, sandy ground’. As a further peculiarity, much of the Isle of Grain is untouched and out of bounds due to unexploded munitions-marked by warning signs as you pass, and large red ‘Danger’ icons on the OS map.
Grain village was quiet in the early Sunday afternoon-no traffic, and the playground at the edge of the recreation ground was deserted. It was beginning to cloud over, so perhaps everyone was staying indoors, unaccustomed to this change in weather after a Summer of endless sunshine.
I passed a small supermarket and a village pub, then the village street reverted to country lane, with a small Norman church dedicated to St. James. It’s set in an open churchyard, and in the South East corner, sheltered by trees, are the graves of five War Dead from both World Wars. Perhaps reflecting its close proximity to the sea, there’s also the grave of an unidentified seaman of the Merchant Navy.
Soon after the church, the school playing field and a few houses, and there it was. The sea, silver-grey under gathering clouds, a vast beach exposed by the low tide.
Far away to my left the Essex coastline curved away from the estuary at Shoebury Ness, and to my right I could see the mouth of the River Medway; beyond lay Rochester and what suddenly felt like an entirely different world. The vast beach extending out across these sea reaches of the Thames is Nore sands, the sandbank being a notorious obstacle and hazard to ships.
The waters beyond are the Nore, for centuries used as an anchorage for ships waiting to enter the Thames towards London, or the Medway towards Rochester, and also as anchorage for the Royal Navy (during the Napoleonic wars the dramatic Nore Mutiny took place here-brilliantly retold by Jonathan Schneer in his book The Thames-England’s River). Poised on the horizon were ships waiting at anchor, and the turbines of the Kent Flats Offshore Wind Farm-from the distance, like small sticks protruding from the water.
I could have explored further, walking around the point to the mouth of the River Medway, to Grain Tower and beyond-as I was born and brought up in Kent, there was a logic, and certain appeal, to this. But perhaps reflecting my life now as a Londoner, I chose not to. It would have meant leaving my beloved River Thames.
Instead, I savoured the moment-every single moment-of this journey's end, then turned back to Grain for my return home.
From source...to sea