Geography of Kent and Dungeness have been formed by accumulation of alluvium. Kent's principal river, the River Medway, rises near Edenbridge and flows some 25 miles (40 km) eastwards to a point near Maidstone, when it turns north. Here it breaks through the North Downs at Rochester before joining the River Thames as its final tributary near Sheerness. The river is tidal as far as Allington lock, but in earlier times cargo-carrying vessels reached as far upstream as Tonbridge. The Medway has captured the head waters of other rivers such as the River Darent. There are other rivers in Kent, most notably the
Maidstone the Hermitage Millennium Amphitheatre. Maidstone is mentioned several times in Ian Fleming's 1955 James Bond novel, "Moonraker". Villain Hugo Drax passes through King Street and Gabriels Hill and later stops at the Thomas Wyatt Hotel. Writer Jack London recounts his visit to Maidstone in his 1903 book "The People of the Abyss". Whilst living in the slums of London in the summer of 1902, he heads to Maidstone in search of hop-picking work up the London Road. He finds lodgings with a "Sea Wife" living in the poor quarter of Maidstone, and persuades her and her husband to let him