170 Medway Valley Park – Strood – Medway City Estate – Chatham

The 170 is one of those workaday Medway routes that turns out to be quietly rewarding to ride from end to end. It begins beside Cineworld at Medway Valley Park, the new mixed retail, leisure and housing district carved out of the old Temple Marsh and Roman Way industrial sites west of Strood. From the window you catch glimpses of the Medway floodplain, scrubby reedbeds and the distant chalk ridge of the North Downs rising behind Cuxton.

The bus threads through Roman Way, picks up at Medway Gate and Butlers Park Way, then swings past Ballard Business Park towards Poplar Road and Hawthorn Road. This is suburban Strood at its most domestic: low terraces, school runs, parades of shops, the steady rhythm of stops every few hundred metres. At Darnley Arch the road dips beneath the rail line, and the bus emerges onto Strood High Street with its mix of independents, takeaways and Georgian frontages stepping down towards the river.

From the High Street stop the route runs along Canal Road and pulls in beside Strood railway station, where the North Kent line crosses the Medway on the long brick viaduct. The view opens out here, Rochester Castle's keep and the cathedral spire visible across the water, with the cast iron of the old bridge in the foreground.

Rather than crossing into Rochester, the 170 takes the river's north bank, slipping past Wingrove Drive and Whitewall Road into Medway City Estate. This is a working landscape of wharves, marine engineering yards, print works and self-storage sheds occupying the old Frindsbury peninsula. Through gaps between the units you get sudden, surprising views of the Medway itself, moored sailing barges, the Victorian dockyard cranes on the far bank, and the great curving sweep of the river as it turns towards the estuary.

Crossing the Medway Tunnel, the bus arrives at Chatham Maritime, gliding past the St George's Centre, the universities campus and the outlet shopping at Dockside. The final approach runs beneath the ramparts of Fort Amherst, past the Main Gate of the Historic Dockyard, and into Chatham Waterfront Bus Station, where the route turns and retraces its steps back to Medway Valley Park.

The 170 makes for an unusual but enjoyable Medway day out, threading together a retail park, a working riverside estate and one of Britain's most important historic dockyards into a single loop. Start at Medway Valley Park, where Cineworld, the bowling alley and the chain restaurants make an easy meeting point and breakfast stop before heading off into Strood.

Hop off at Strood High Street and walk the short distance down to the river. The view from Strood Pier across to Rochester is one of the great Medway panoramas, with the Norman keep of Rochester Castle and the west front of Rochester Cathedral lined up across the water. If you have time, cross the bridge for an hour or two in Rochester itself, where the High Street has Dickensian associations at every corner and the Guildhall Museum tells the river's story.

Back on the 170, ride through Medway City Estate towards Chatham Maritime. The St George's Centre, the old garrison church repurposed as a community venue, is worth a glance, and Dockside Outlet Centre nearby offers high street shopping in converted dockyard buildings beside the marina.

The undoubted highlight, though, is the Historic Dockyard Chatham, just a short walk from the Waterfront Bus Station. Three historic warships, including HMS Cavalier and the submarine Ocelot, sit alongside the magnificent Georgian ropery, the Victorian smithery and the Command of the Oceans gallery. Plan for at least half a day here if you can.

For something completely different, climb the lane up to Fort Amherst, where guided tours take visitors into the chalk-cut tunnels and bastions that once guarded the dockyard's landward flank. The views from the upper batteries across the Medway towards Upnor Castle are superb.

Round things off at Chatham Waterfront itself, watching the river traffic from one of the cafes, before catching the 170 back through Medway City Estate and Strood to Medway Valley Park.