More Castles

4th May - Saturday

 Hope he knows where he is going to land!

 Not much room to move

 Still no sand

 A moat without water

 Look, we can see France from here

 No, they are not aniseed balls!

 The Queen Mother's garden

 Port of Dover

 White Cliffs and no blue birds to be seen (probably too windy)

 Dover Castle and too windy to keep a cap on

Stay!!!

Whew – what a long day it has been! We left Herne Bay shortly before 9.00 am and headed for Dover, but on the advice of our host at Herne Bay, we travelled via Sandwich and Deal. Shortly before arriving at Sandwich, we were driving along a nice straight road and suddenly realised there was a large jet headed straight for us and descending quickly! It was rather a relief to realise that we were driving along right beside an airport runway. Sandwich was such a very old and quaint village/town and Doris did such a good job of navigating us through the narrow, twisting streets. I was quite enthralled at the character of the place, unfortunately the pilot didn’t quite comprehend my feelings – after mopping the perspiration from his brow, it was necessary to prise open his fingers from the steering wheel. He kept muttering something about the stress of it all …


Our Heritage booklet had a listing for Walmer Castle at Deal, so with time to spare, it was down more back roads to the castle, which is the official residence of the Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports, dating back to the Duke of Wellington. We were a little early, so had a short stroll on the beach (or the pathway at the back of the beach, rather). The castle was very interesting, it even had a moat, with lots of Wellington memorabilia and an audio guide given by a very snobby “former resident” of the castle, prior to Winston Church being the Lord Warden. Robert Menzies, as the warden before the Queen Mother, also had a portrait and bust in the residence. We had a quick look in the garden but couldn’t find the fox cubs under the yew hedge – it was probably a bit cold for them.

Onwards to Dover and the White Cliffs, which belong to the National Trust. After finding somewhere to park (with a National Trust sticker, we don’t have to pay for parking), we joined the large throng heading for the cliff top walks, and quickly discovered cliff top literally means cliff top! No railings, just a long drop straight down. Once we could see a cliff in the distance, take a photo and refuse to move closer to the edge so a “gentleman” could get past, we quickly retraced our steps.

Dover Castle was our next stop and fortunately there was a shuttle bus running between the car park outside the castle grounds to the visitors’ centre towards the top of the castle grounds. It was at this point that the weather really decided to turn nasty, with strong winds and very icy rain. We quickly found the café for a sandwich and coffee, before braving the elements again and making a quick dash, along with a large Cub pack, into the Great Tower. We did think, for half a second, about climbing to the top of the tower, but turned instead to the Second World War Tunnels and the history of that era. With only 30 people admitted at a time, we had about a 20 minute wait in the cold and rain before heading underground to an absolutely fabulous audio visual display through the tunnels and chambers cut into the cliffs. The main focus was on the evacuation of troops from Dunkirk, and we were able to move through the actual rooms in use at the time. With time starting to get away from us, it was back to the shuttle bus for the trip to the car park. Unfortunately, the exit from the tunnels was at the very bottom of the cliffs and we had a long (make that very long) walk back up the hill to catch a bus to bring us back down the hill – and a bit further!

Then it was on to the motorway for a couple of hours driving to the Cambridge area and we even negotiated the Dartford Crossing Tunnel and toll station without any problems. Being Saturday, the traffic wasn’t too bad and there weren’t many trucks on the road.

We are staying at a B & B in Fordham, not far from Cambridge, and their information told us not to arrive before 5.30pm! Of course, we arrived at 5.15pm and no one answered the door. I telephoned after 5.30 and said we were in the car park and this “oh so English” lady came to show us our room, apologised profusely for not hearing our knock, just kept talking and talking about where we could eat and go to church, about the Newmarket races which are on this weekend, where we could eat and we probably wouldn’t get in, worried about the room, where we could eat, etc, etc. Husband Malcolm arrived and we went through it all again. We had managed to make a reservation to eat in a nearby village in 20 minutes, when Malcolm knocked on the door of our snug little room and asked if we would be more comfortable upstairs (the B & B rooms are in a converted stable). So it was up the stairs, yes it was a warmer room and we would shift, back down to move the cases and be introduced to Mary and her husband who are sharing the barn with us, try and get the cases into what seemed and even smaller case and convince Malcolm we really needed to leave. Eventually into the car and during the process of reversing out the driveway, one of the stump stones (mushroom shaped stone and concrete affairs) jumped out behind our car and fell over. Quick restacking of the stone, hoping no one was looking, before driving off to the even smaller village of Freckenham and the Golden Boar. With the race crowd in attendance, with chaps in their bright orange or pink trousers and tweed coats, we did feel a little under-dressed. However, the meal was well worth it. Back to our cosy room and an attempt to place our cases so we don’t have to actually climb over them to use the ensuite, which is a tad smaller than our caravan ensuite – but it does have a mixer tap!!!