191 Chatham – Strood – Hoo – High Halstow – Allhallows – Grain

The 191 is one of those bus routes that quietly rewards anyone willing to sit on board for the long haul. It starts in the middle of Medway's modern bustle at Chatham Waterfront Bus Station, then heads out across the Hoo Peninsula, an isolated finger of marsh and farmland reaching towards the Thames Estuary. By the time you reach the Isle of Grain at the far end, you feel a long way from the high street you left behind.

Leaving Stop A4 at the Waterfront, the bus passes Chatham Railway Station and the slope of St Bart's Hospital before slipping into Rochester. There are some lovely glimpses here, the curtain wall of the Norman castle, the squat tower of the cathedral, and the timbered Guildhall Museum on the High Street. The route then ducks down towards the Medway, crossing into Strood past Canal Road and the Post Office.

From Strood the character changes quickly. The bus climbs through Frindsbury Extra, past the English Martyrs Church, and out into Wainscott, where modern estates give way to fields. Beyond Chattenden Lane the road opens up onto the peninsula proper, with hedgerows, polytunnels and the occasional view across to the wooded ridge above the Medway.

Hoo St Werburgh is the largest village on the route and the bus winds patiently through it, calling at the Marina, the Five Bells, and a string of residential roads. The Marina stop is a treat in itself, with masts crowded along Hoo Saltings and the muddy creek winding out towards the river. After Hoo the lanes narrow and the views widen. Sharnal Street and the turn at Christmas Lane mark the start of properly open country.

High Halstow sits on slightly higher ground and is best known to naturalists for the RSPB reserve at Northward Hill, with its heronry and bluebell woods on the marsh edge. The bus does not call at the reserve itself but passes close by, and the Fenn Bell beyond the village is a recognised local landmark.

From there the route runs out to Allhallows, dropping past the holiday village and Kingsmead Caravan Park to one of the most underrated views in Kent. From the sea wall here you can see Canvey Island, Southend, and the great container ships moving up the Thames. The bus then loops on to the Isle of Grain itself, threading past Thamesport's cranes and the power station site before reaching Grain High Street, a quiet village with a stubby Norman church and a beach of shingle and concrete sea defences staring out at the estuary mouth.

The return follows the same stops in reverse, which is no hardship. The light over the marshes shifts hour by hour, and on a clear afternoon the run back through Hoo and into Rochester, with the cathedral floodlit against the dusk, is genuinely memorable.