Reserve judgement when you arrive at Swale because it is no reflection on your final destination. Swale is the nearest train station to Elmley and as we arrived from London, we expected the treasures of one of England’s foremost national nature reserves to unfurl before us like a fog lifting on Xanadu.

Only Swale (dictionary definition: a marshy depression), sat on the shore of its eponymous river, which cuts off the Isle of Sheppey from the mainland, did not give up much. It’s a single-platform station, with a single-vehicle car park, wedged under the thunderous dual-carriageway bridge that rises up and off into the distance. A view down to the banks, snuggled up close to the Crossing’s concrete...