700 Chatham – Rochester – Strood – Earl Estate – Bluewater

The 700 stitches together two very different sides of north Kent: the historic heart of the Medway Towns and the vast retail amphitheatre of Bluewater, carved into a former chalk pit on the edge of the Thames marshes. It is a useful, everyday route, but the views from the upper deck give it more character than the timetable suggests.

Setting off from Chatham Waterfront Bus Station, the bus pulls away with the masts and cranes of the Historic Dockyard close at hand and the broad sweep of the River Medway to one side. A short hop brings you past Chatham Railway Station and St Bart's Hospital before the route slides into Rochester, where the High Street narrows between timber-framed shopfronts and Dickensian inns. The Guildhall Museum stop sits within easy sight of the Norman keep of Rochester Castle and the spire of Rochester Cathedral, two of the most photographed silhouettes in Kent.

Beyond Rochester Railway Station the 700 climbs to Star Hill and Jacksons Fields, with rooftops dropping away towards the river. The bus then descends to cross the Medway by the Strood bridges, with a brief but striking view upstream of mudflats, moored yachts and the castle keep framed against the sky. Strood High Street follows, busy with shoppers, before the route turns through Canal Road and the retail sheds around Matalan and Morrisons.

From Strood Darnley Arch the bus loops into the Earl Estate, a quiet residential network of avenues named for birds and flowers: Albatross Avenue, Fulmar Road, Columbine Road, Elaine Avenue. It is everyday Medway, the sort of suburban texture most tourist routes skip, with glimpses of the Hoo Peninsula's low green ridge in the distance.

Out of the estate, the 700 rejoins the Watling Street corridor and heads north towards the Thames. The landscape opens into the chalk country of north-west Kent, scarred and reshaped by quarrying. The final approach drops down into the bowl of the old Eastern Quarry, where Bluewater's curving white roofs and lakes appear almost suddenly, ringed by cliffs of bare chalk and birch scrub. The bus pulls into Bluewater Bus Station at Stop 11, ready to send shoppers off into one of the largest covered retail centres in Europe.

It is a short journey by Kentish standards, but one that links castle, cathedral, river crossing, suburb and super-mall in a single ride.

The 700 makes a satisfying day out precisely because it connects two very different kinds of place: the medieval streets of Rochester and the modern retail theatre of Bluewater. Start at Chatham Waterfront Bus Station, where you can grab a coffee on the quayside and watch the tide move on the Medway before boarding.

A short ride brings you to Rochester, and this is where most visitors will want to step off first. The Guildhall Museum stop puts you within a few minutes' walk of Rochester Castle, whose great Norman keep is one of the tallest in England and offers sweeping views of the river from its battlements. Next door, Rochester Cathedral, founded in 604, is the second oldest cathedral in England and well worth a quiet wander around its crypt and Romanesque nave.

Rochester High Street itself rewards a slow amble. The Six Poor Travellers House, Eastgate House and the various Dickens associations (the novelist lived nearby at Gad's Hill) thread through a street of independent bookshops, sweet shops and tea rooms. For lunch, the historic coaching inns and riverside cafes near the bridge are reliable choices.

Back on the 700, the bus crosses the Medway into Strood. If you have time, the riverside path here gives one of the best views back to the castle and cathedral together, a classic Kentish skyline. The route then dips through the Earl Estate, a residential loop that lets you see a more everyday side of Medway before rejoining the main road north.

The final approach to Bluewater is a small spectacle in its own right as the road descends into the old chalk quarry. Once at the bus station, you step into a covered retail centre with more than 300 shops, a long roster of restaurants in the Wintergarden and Plaza, a cinema, and landscaped lakes outside where you can walk off lunch. For families, the boating lake and outdoor play areas around the perimeter make a pleasant change from indoor browsing.

Time your return to catch the late afternoon light over the Medway as the bus heads back into Rochester, and you have the makings of a properly varied Kentish day.