07/04/07 – 08/04/07: The trip out, White Cliffs of Dover & Deale Beach

I’d organized a YHA card, bought along my sleeping bag and splurged on a silk liner to rough it out in notoriously rat-infested, over-crowded, noisy, squeezy, smelly youth hostels when I arrived in London. But then came Steve. I’m thinking Steve comes close to my Cortizone cream. Steve came along with these emails saying ‘No no! You’ll come stay at my place! I’ll pick you up at the airport!’ and so on. So I basically landed – four hours late mind you! – with my own chauffeur, a personal chef, housekeeper, secretary, tour-guide, cleaner, and of course, friend.

The flight out was relatively uneventful: I was supposed to stop-over in Singapore for about 3 or 4 hours, and Chris had equipped me with a complimentary Qantas Club card so I could spend those hours in style. But the plane out from Perth was delayed because the wheels had come off and needed to be put back on, so as soon as I landed in Singapore it was straight onto the plane for England. I slept as soon as I sat down, and work up some time later. Someone had put food in front of me while I was asleep and I thought ‘Gee I wonder how long I was out for’; looked out the window and saw that we actually hadn’t even left yet. Apparently some guy hadn’t turned up so they were waiting for him. Then he did turn up, and they had to put his luggage away, but then they couldn’t get the door to shut, and they had to get someone out to fix the door. So we were really, really late.

I had the window seat, and there was a guy sitting next to me having a hard time with his TV and controls. He was so upset it wasn’t working and the steward came round and said that he’ll be given a duty free voucher because he got the busted TV. Anyway, the guy was so upset, and from the way he was talking, I thought that perhaps he was a little developmentally delayed and had a resulting speech impediment or something, so I offered to swap seats with him since I’ll be sleeping most of the way anyway. Turned out there was nothing wrong with the guy. He just had a really thick Irish accent.

And he kept my window seat the whole time – AND he kept the duty free voucher too! I suggested he buy the $40 portable shaver, which he did, and was very pleased with it too. But I couldn’t help feeling that maybe, just maybe, I should have gotten that shaver…

But enough about that. More about England. Arrived late. Luckily Steve was still there, all charms and suave as ever. We drove back to his place past idyllic pastures and green rolling meadows to Ashford in Kent. Steve lives in a very quaint little house in a lovely estate. All the new houses are built in the style of the traditional houses here. Some of them even had what’s called ‘Kent-peg-tiles’ as features on their façade. I may have some photos of Kent-peg-tiled houses. If I don’t, I’ll be taking some photos of original peg-tiled houses at a later stage I’m sure. The tiles don’t go only on the roof, they go on the walls. The tiles are made with local clay, and have two holes in them, and are literally just hung on wooden pegs in the wall. It was a system developed ages ago, but endemic to the Kent region.

A big part of Kent sits in a massive syncline with clay soil, and is bordered on both sides by chalk hills that they call the ‘downs’. To be honest, I’m going to have to find out whether the down bit is called the downs or whether it’s the up bits. Meanwhile, the chalk can be seen poking out from under the covering vegetation.. The water here is therefore quite hard. Driving around the area, you can pick out certain buildings that date from Georgian, to Victorian to Tudor all the way to one or two churches which go all the way back to Norman times.

Steve had decided that a good introduction to the area might be to drive down to Dover, one of the Cinque Ports (pronounced ‘sang ports’) and check out the white cliffs. A fantastic way to spend the first day. The weather was perfectly sublime and being a very high air-traffic region, the sky was just cris-crossed with contrails that then meld together to form webs of cirrostratus clouds. If the air was still enough, it would look pretty amazing. I couldn’t get shots of the cris-crossing because my camera is obviously not designed for such wide-angled shots.

On the way down there, we stopped by several other little towns like ‘River’ and ‘Crabble’. I had to ring Steve and ask him for the names! Steve was a fantastic wealth of knowledge on the local flora and fauna (Latin nomenclature of most plant, bird and fungi species included in this walking-talking guide). There were moorhens and coots and a quaint mill, and everyone was out and about because of the Easter weekend.

Meanwhile, from the white cliffs, you can apparently see clear to a church steeple in France somewhere. I’ve forgotten the name. This is why I need to write things down. But the day was a little hazy despite the blue skies. It was quite lovely really. People walking their dogs, just enjoying the sea air and shuffling through the grass… Mmmmmmm. Devine.

You’ll see from the photos the castle that sits atop the cliffs of Dover; put there by some King from the past. To ensure accuracy in my notes, those who are interested in the history and facts can click here: Kent.

We drove across to Deale after Dover, and walked along the beach and down the pier. The houses that line the beach front of Deale were obviously holiday houses of the better-off from Victorian era I think. Steve will correct me if I’m wrong. Cute little place. There is also a castle in Deale complete with a fort. For more information, click here: Deale Castle.

Well worth the rash I got on my belly from the buckle of my belt. As many of you would know, I’m highly allergic to most metals. And I was just starting to get over that last bout too! Thank goodness I brought along that tube of Cortizone (I never wear belts. But decided to wear one not so much to hold my pants up, but as a means of taking one across with me without incurring the weight on my luggage. So much for that idea. Now I’ve brought along a belt I can’t wear!).