La vraie vie est nomade. True life is nomadic. That is the view of the great French novelist and essayist, Sylvie Germain. The older I become, the truer this statement seems.

As a Kentishman now living in exile in Surrey, I have lived a peripatetic existence that has taken me to Cambridgeshire, Cumbria, London, Norfolk, Oxfordshire, and Yorkshire. My life has been lived in cars and sometimes on trains but only occasionally on foot. I walked only when no other option was available. As my, and everyone else’s, life became increasingly tech-tethered – especially during and after Covid – this really began to bug me.

But when I started working for Mary’s Meals, a really wonderful charity that serves life-changing school meals to more than three million children in some of the world’s poorest communities, I sensed an opportunity. I am the Supporter Engagement Officer for Kent, Surrey and Sussex, which means I have the privilege of telling the Mary’s Meals story in schools, churches, and community groups across the South-East. I am, in effect, a travelling storyteller, which means that I have a licence to explore the region where I was born and bred. Unfortunately, it also means I spend a lot of time in the car when I really want to walk, to learn through the soles of my feet, to give time to people and to God in prayer. Organising a pilgrimage seemed an obvious solution.

Having been brought up on the Kentish North Downs, I knew about the Pilgrims’ Way from London to Canterbury and assumed it was the only route to take, but, when I started seriously planning, I stumbled across the Augustine Camino from Rochester Cathedral to Canterbury Cathedral and then onto the Shrine of St Augustine in Ramsgate. Even better! By September 2025, almost 30 pilgrims had signed up, some of whom planned to walk the whole route, while others wanted to walk for between and one and three days. We welcomed them all. 

Our largest group of the week gathered for the first day’s walk from Rochester to Aylesford Priory, a place I’d only ever visited by driving down the M20. After a tour of the cathedral and a pilgrims’ blessing, we set off through my hometown and, in a sense, I discovered the city for the first time. We walked along the River Medway and then climbed up onto the chalk and looked down on it. We walked through fields and woods, through rain and sun, talking, listening, sharing jokes and stories, enjoying the freedom of the day. 

That was how we started. The rest of the week was equally enchanting, though sometimes physically demanding. My right boot disintegrated on day two: my left boot on day six. But it didn’t really matter. A fellow pilgrim carried out emergency repairs with his spare bootlaces and we walked on through villages I had never got round to visiting before. They welcomed us nonetheless, as we visited their pubs and churches, savoured the sound of their long-rooted names: Burham, Sandling, Eccles, Boxley, Detling, Thurnham, Hucking, Bredgar, Milstead, Doddington, Kingsdown, Painters Forstal, Ospringe, Boughton under Blean, Fordwich, Wickhambreaux, Stodmarsh, West Stourmouth, Pluck’s Gutter, Minster, and Cliffs End. An ancient Kentish litany. 

As we walked, I wondered what pilgrimage gives the pilgrim? What did this pilgrimage give us? First, it gave us time. Time to be with other people. To pay them attention. To talk and listen to them. We are all time-poor. To be rushed is an inescapable part of modern life. But over those seven days – as we walked through orchards, vineyards, and ancient woodlands – we freed ourselves from the clock and rediscovered time. Second, it opened our eyes. Too often we see the world through windscreens. Places blur with speed. We assume that the only sights worth seeing are the ones we drive or fly to. But when we walked the Camino, we saw what we usually glaze over and rush past. Bats cascading through ancient churches. Wild fruit clustering by the path’s side. The slow transformation of the Kentish countryside. Third, it enabled prayer. This wasn’t a long-distance walk: it was a pilgrimage. We walked and we talked. We listened and we prayed. The highlight of the pilgrimage for many was praying the Rosary each day, sometimes in pouring rain, sometimes in dazzling sunshine, once with a rainbow arcing over us. It was also a real blessing to begin or end each day with Mass. In Aylesford Priory, in St Thomas of Canterbury Church in Canterbury (with their relic of St Thomas Becket on the altar), at the Shrine of St Augustine of Canterbury in Ramsgate (in the presence of a relic of St Augustine). This was walking boosted sacramentally to a whole new level. 

We walked for our own enjoyment but we also, and primarily, walked for others. We walked in solidarity with the children Mary’s Meals serves, some of whom walk up to two hours to school each day. We prayed for each other and for hungry children around the world. Some of our pilgrims raised sponsorship money too, knowing that it costs just £19.15 to feed a child for a year with Mary’s Meals. Funds are still coming in but something like 250 children will be  able to eat our nutritious meals for a whole school year thanks to the generosity of our pilgrims and their supporters. At Mary’s Meals we have confidence in the innate goodness of people, we respect the dignity of every human being and family life, and we believe in good stewardship of resources entrusted to us. Giving time to people matters. Listening to people matters. Caring for the world in which we live matters. All of which means that pilgrimage matters too, even in the 21^st century. Especially in the 21^st century.

As we walked into Ramsgate with the sea to the right and the sun to the left, our dominant feeling was one of gratitude. Gratitude for the opportunity to step away from the busyness of life. Gratitude for the companionship we had found. Gratitude for a week well walked. When we said our goodbyes, we promised we would walk this way again.

Roy Peachey

• To find out more about our pilgrimage, visit https://roypeachey.substack.com/p/walking-the-augustine-camino.
• To find out more about Mary’s Meals and our work to bring hope for a better future to hungry children, visit marysmeals.org.uk
• You can find more about the Augustine Camino here.