Day on the Road

I don't usually plan my activities to the last second before setting off on a trip.  I find that it's too easy to get messed up by the weather, or a change of mood, or a late sleep-in.

Of course there are exceptions: that hit show that you have to get tickets for, or something like the "London Eye" which in peak season can be booked solid a week ahead or more.  But generally, I like to go on impulse.  Today was a perfect example.

Yesterday, we had the cold front and the rain.  The forecast then said that we could expect 3-4 solid days of mixed sun and showers.  So I wasn't sure what form today might take.  But when I woke up this morning to a cloudless blue sky, I made a sudden impulsive decision to take the car and go for a drive along the coastal highway east of Brighton -- to Dover.

On a map, it doesn't look far.  But this is the United Kingdom, and when you leave the "motorways" (freeways) you slow right down.  Roads are narrow, twist and turn a great deal and work their way through towns and villages with many a zigzag.  As if that weren't enough, there's all that pesky scenery that keeps tempting you to stop and admire the view, go for a walk on a trail, take pictures, etc.  Net result: it took me over 5 hours to get there!  (Return trip was faster, 1 hour 30 minutes by motorway!).

Next piece of advice: when making this kind of scenic drive, make sure you are well-stocked with British coins.  These coastal communities have all discovered the joys of the pay-and-display car park, and the machines mostly accept only coins.  That skewered my chances of one particularly scenic stop, because I knew I would be away from the car for a good half hour and I could see the watchman roaming the lot, checking for tickets displayed on dashboards.  Damn.

The end of the drive, Dover, is famous for its white cliffs, but in fact you only have to go a few miles east of Brighton to begin sighting white cliffs because the whole region is underlain by massive deposits of chalk and similar materials.

I stopped at Eastbourne, to go for a walk along the seafront.  Eastbourne looks exactly like a more genteel version of Brighton, with many more elderly people sauntering or sitting in the sun.  It always comes as a shock to first-time visitors to find such near-tropical vegetation as palmettos growing in England.  But the climate is kept temperate every year by the strong influence of the warm Gulf Stream, and such plants are even grown in sheltered locations well up north in Scotland!

Just to the west of Eastbourne is Beachy Head, a prominent projecting point of chalk cliffs.  Although I did drive up there, that's where I had to forego the scenic hike due to the car-park problem.

Driving on eastwards, I came to the small village of Pevensey, which looks exactly like what a small English village ought to look like!  Here I stopped to pay a visit to an ancient Norman ruin, Pevensey Castle.  Like many of its kind, only the outer walls remain and you have to use a good deal of imagination to try to see what the complete structure was like in its day.

Up to this point there's been a lot of climbing up and down by the road, but now you pass through large flat areas of marshland adapted for farming.  Along the way you pass through several towns that were once important commercial harbours but are now cut off from the sea (or nearly so) by the silting actions of the marshland rivers.  These include Rye and Winchelsea.  But then as you carry on the hills are suddenly there again and you have to climb up and down some hefty ones to arrive first at Folkestone, the site of the Channel Tunnel terminal, and then Dover.

And here you come to Dover Castle, another Norman structure which dates in large part to the time of King Henry II.  Indeed there are two even older buildings within the walls: a Saxon church and the shell of a Roman pharos or lighthouse, one of two that guarded Dover.  The very un-Roman pointed arches are explained by the fact that the tower was later adapted into a bell tower for the church,  With that information, it's easy to see that the pointed arches were inserted into the older stonework.

At first glance you might think the castle is in extraordinarily good repair -- until you read a signboard which tells you that it housed an active military garrison as recently as the 1950s!  Then the good condition of the castle makes sense, as does the large number of buildings plainly dating from the 19th century within the walls.

For Dover Castle is huge.  It consisted of three concentric rings of complete walls, with buildings in each of the outer and middle courts or "wards", and the massive King Henry Tower in the innermost court.  I spent a good hour walking all over the place and feel that I only scratched the surface of all there is to see and do here.  This picture shows only the inner courtyard walls and the square Tower looming within them.

The value of the Castle even to modern warfare becomes obvious when you go to the lookout point at the southern end and scan the view -- especially on such a crystal-clear day as today.  Of course the Castle Hill commands the entire harbour and beach at Dover, and all its approaches.  This is a splendid place to watch the ferries coming and going to and from France and Belgium -- and in spite of the Channel Tunnel there is still plenty of business for the ferries to pick up!

If you look closely at the right edge of the second picture, you can actually see the French coast in the distance, between Calais and Boulogne, at Cap Gris Nez.  Modern land-based artillery mounted on such high ground are perfectly capable of sweeping the entire width of the English Channel at this, its narrowest point, with murderous heavy gunfire.  It's no wonder that the English Channel has traditionally been referred to as Britain's "Moat" -- the image makes perfect sense!

A little farther to the left (east of the Castle) you get one splendid view of the famous White Cliffs of Dover.

Unfortunately, my experience was the same as that of the several family members who were here a couple of months ago.  I saw no bluebirds.