Walk 20 -- Sandgate to Folkestone Harbour

Ages: Colin was 58 years and 91 days. Rosemary was 55 years and 218 days.
Weather: Threatening clouds, but remaining dry and very warm, as yesterday in fact.
Location: From Sandgate to Folkestone.
Distance: 3 miles.
Total distance: 133 miles.
Terrain: Some concrete prom covered in shingle, some shingle beach and some tarmacked and cobbled streets.
Tide: Coming in.
Rivers to cross: None.
Ferries: None.
Piers: None.
Kissing gates: None.
Pubs: None. (Colin said he ‘couldn’t be bothered’ to go looking for a pub only to find it had disappointing beer!!)
‘English Heritage’ properties: None.
Ferris wheels: None, despite a fairground at Folkestone.
Diversions: None.
How we got there and back: We packed up our camp at Stelling Minnis. We drove to Sandgate where we parked in the free car park overlooking the sea wall.
At the end, we walked back to Folkestone bus station and caught a bus which was 15 minutes late back to Sandgate. The fare for this two mile journey was £1.05 each! (A taxi could well have been cheaper.) Then we drove home to Bognor.

We started along the lower prom which was covered in shingle washed up from the beach and seemed to be very unkempt. The prom soon ran out and we had a bit of shingle beach to walk on—but we are getting used to that. Then we discovered Folkestone’s nudist beach! There were cliffs to our left now, the first since Pett all that way back, and lying at the bottom of these were a few repulsive bodies looking like stranded white whales! Answer me this—why is it that the people who frequent nudist beaches are always middle-aged and bulbous? There are some things in life which are best kept hidden, and fat white naked bodies come high on the list!
Colin remarked on the rocks that were on the beach, a rather nice stone with a greenish tinge. Using my geological knowledge (after all, I have got an honours degree in the subject) I surmised that they were upper greensand, a layer of harder rock which occurs just below the chalk. (My computer, however, is quite ignorant of this because it has just marked greensand as a wrong spelling!) Ever since we were at Pett, forty miles back, we have been walking on flat shingle, mostly reclaimed from the sea. But we have seen the Downs away to our left, and over the last ten miles or so we have particularly noticed the line of green hills closing in on us—the North Downs. Folkestone is where they hit the sea, so it makes sense that the rocks just before Folkestone are the thin layer of upper greensand.
The Royal Military Canal starts at Pett and goes all along the bottom of these hills to end where the flat land ends, about where we came across the Citroën garage yesterday. It is very beautiful with lovely walks alongside it, we have crossed over it many times on our comings and goings to get to these walks. It is a complete wildlife sanctuary because it was never actually used for the purpose for which it was built—defence.
It was started in 1804 when the threat of invasion by Napoléon and his cronies from across the Channel was very real. The idea was that troops and their big guns could be transported in barges very quickly along this vulnerable flat length of coast, and the soil dug out could be built into a bank to provide a screen for a parallel road so the defence forces could also move safely. By the time it was completed in 1809, Napoléon had been defeated at Trafalgar and, although the Battle of Waterloo was yet to be fought, the threat of invasion was no more. It had cost £230000 to build (multi-millions in present day terms) and was redundant even before it was completed! It was leased out for freight and passenger traffic in an effort to recoup some of this cost, but it was never very busy because it did not connect anywhere of particular importance. After ninety years or so it fell into complete disuse, but since it had no locks and was across extremely flat country it did not dry up or become derelict. It has been protected as a wildlife sanctuary for many years with limited pleasure use in places like Hythe.
Back to our walk, we only had a short bit of shingle walking before we stepped on to the westernmost prom of Folkestone, and from then on walking was a lot easier. We passed a number of beach huts at the bottom of the cliff, but not a single one was in use. All were padlocked, some with a lock so rusty that it obviously hadn’t been opened for years. We asked some passing street cleaners if they knew who owned them and if they were ever used. They said they thought that they were Council owned and that they were probably used ‘in the season’. When I pointed out that it was the season, they laughed and shrugged their shoulders!
Once more we sighed for the demise of the English seaside, and I remarked that when we restarted our seaside holidays as a family when I was twelve (in 1957) we always booked a beach hut for the week. Dad was used to doing that ever since he started booking seaside holidays in 1933, a year after he married Mum. After the summer of 1939 their seaside holidays were interrupted by the War, then they were unable to afford such luxuries for a few years with six children, then seven, then eight! By 1957 some of the older ones had left home and Dad was being paid more, so it was Lyme Regis that year, Swanage in 1958, Margate in 1959, Minehead in 1960 and Barmouth in 1962. In 1961 we went abroad for the first time and I suppose other families became more adventurous as we did, so the traditional seaside began its decline—1962 was the last time my Dad ever booked a beach hut. They were good, they usually contained a few deckchairs, a windbreak, a kettle & tea cups and a little gas stove—there was always a tap somewhere near where you could fill your kettle.
A little further along we passed another interesting feature—the Leas Lift, a Victorian water balanced lift which carries people up to the top of the cliff. It was opened in 1885 with another alongside it in 1890. Each car has a tank underneath for water, the lower tank is emptied and the water pumped up to fill the upper one. When the weight is balanced the upper one will start to move of its own accord, pulling the lower one up with a cable as it descends. If the upper car is full of people and the lower one empty, then the lift can be persuaded to work without any water at all! By 1967, the older lift was already derelict and the 1890 one went out of service too (the demise of the English seaside again!) Luckily, the local Council had the foresight to buy it, restore it and open it up again. It has been working ever since and we stood and watched it going up and down several times.
We then moved along to the funfair, and I was very disappointed that there was no Ferris wheel. Will I ever get a ride on one? There was a small log flume and I like those too, perhaps I should change my affections but I don’t want to get wet!
We walked right along the beach to the bottom of the harbour wall, then realised we had come to a dead end because there was no way up. Colin even tried a pink door but it was bolted on the other side. We started to retrace our steps, then Colin yelped because he had found a hole in the fence just big enough to squeeze through. Like two adolescents, we crawled through the gap and skitted across a car park to Folkestone Harbour Station! Again, it was Colin who discovered the way up on to the harbour wall—we walked along the station platform which curved so we were soon out of sight of the main buildings and passed the other side of the pink door which was firmly padlocked; then, turning back on ourselves we mounted a smelly stone staircase and there was a small door at the top which led out on to the wall. There was some notice about fishing competitions and not permitted if you didn’t have a permit, but we ignored it because it was about fishing.
From up there we could see the harbour end of Folkestone Harbour Station where they used to load the boat trains on to cross-Channel ferries in the ‘good old days’ of steam. The whole place had an air of dereliction about it. Only catamarans cross from Folkestone to Boulogne these days, and not very many of them. It was a very clear day and we could see a good long way, but we couldn’t see France because it was too hazy on the horizon. There were lots of fishermen up there and we walked past several of them as we made our way towards the lighthouse on the end. Suddenly one of them approached us and told us, very politely, that we were not allowed on the harbour wall if we were not fishermen. Oh, all right then; so we turned about and casually ambled back taking all the photos we wanted as we went.

Back on the station platform we noticed that the opposite platform was all nicely decorated up to top-of-head level but extremely tatty above that, it certainly looked very odd from where we were standing. Our way (the nearest safe path to the sea) led across the footbridge - which seemed airless and smelt strongly of Jeyes fluid! - over the railway and into the station building. We were looking for the loo which was on the platform, and were rather surprised to find a carpeted slope leading down to posh self-opening doors. Then all was explained—for on the doors was etched ‘The Orient Express’! Trying to relive the grand days of style and at great expense to themselves, people are brought to this semi-derelict station in their posh Pullman carriages only to cross the Channel on a catamaran! It’s all right if they don’t look up when they alight from the train, nor too much to the right or left, then they will only see the painted bits as they are no doubt hustled into a first class lounge hidden somewhere behind closed doors! (Why am I so cynical? Did I inherit it, or has life taught me a few lessons over the years?)
We crossed the station forecourt to where a Russian submarine was parked in the harbour, but we didn’t pay to go round it. Where did they get it from anyway? Did they capture it in the Cold War? Ironically, less than a week later a Russian nuclear submarine sank in the Barents Sea in rather mysterious circumstances with the loss of over a hundred lives. The Russians were still very cagey about others discovering their ‘secrets’ even in this day and age with the result that they didn’t ask for help with the rescue from other nations (Britain had a suitable sub and experts based at Glasgow) until it was far too late to do anything for those poor wretched men running out of air in the dark and cold.
We had to walk over the railway to get round the harbour, past a lot of stalls on a cobbled square on the other side and under the railway arches to go through the fish market. The eastern wall of the harbour is low, narrow and prohibited to the public. There were some people standing on the end of it but they had got off a boat. We decided to end our walk there.

That ended Walk No.20, we shall pick up Walk No.21 next time at the eastern wall of Folkestone Harbour. We bought an ice cream, then walked back past the top of the cliff lift to the bus station where we caught a bus which was 15 minutes late back to Sandgate where our car was parked. The fare for this two mile journey was £1.05 each! (A taxi could well have been cheaper.) On our way home to Bognor we stopped at the Citroën garage at Seabrook where we were shown a red two-year-old Citroën Xantia with only 16000 miles on the clock. We subsequently bought it having negotiated a very reasonable price including part-exchanging our present white six-year-old Renault Clio.

Walk 19 -- Dymchurch, via Hythe, to Sandgate

Ages: Colin was 58 years and 90 days. Rosemary was 55 years and 217 days.
Weather: Threatening clouds, but remaining dry and very warm.
Location: From Dymchurch to Sandgate.
Distance: 9 miles.
Total distance: 130 miles.
Terrain: Concrete and tarmac proms, sea walls and pavements.
Tide: Out, coming in.
Rivers to cross: None.
Ferries: None.
Piers: None.
Kissing gates: None.
Pubs: The ‘Ocean Inn’ at Dymchurch where we drank ‘Silver Knight’.
‘English Heritage’ properties: None.
Ferris wheels: None.
Diversions: No.9 around the military range at Hythe where they were pounding away with guns over the beach and out to sea on a hot Sunday afternoon in August—we just didn’t fancy getting shot!
How we got there and back: We were already camping at Stelling Minnis. We drove to Sandgate where we found a free car park overlooking the sea wall. We caught a bus (which did turn up today!) to Dymchurch.
At the end, we drove to a very nice pub for our evening meal, and returned to our camp at Stelling Minnis.

We started this walk in the pub! Well, we had a bit of a lazy morning with all the frustrations of yesterday (excuses! excuses!) and by the time we got to Dymchurch it was lunchtime. We sat in the garden wondering whether the black clouds were going to shed their contents over us at any moment, but they just blew on past and it remained dry and very hot.
The Martello tower still wasn’t open, so we got up on to the sea wall and started walking along. Being a Sunday in the height of the holiday season there were a lot of people about, especially children enjoying themselves by the seaside. Dymchurch beach is lovely and sandy, and the sea is shallow making it ideal for families. Dymchurch sea wall is very high—even so I wouldn’t like to live there because the land behind it has been reclaimed, is as low as the beach and very flat. Unless your house is three storeys high (which one house was, and a very ugly construction too!) your only view southwards is a blank wall! Besides that, sometimes the forces of nature are much more powerful than we give them credit for, and if that wall was to go you wouldn’t stand a chance. We were happy walking along it because we could see a long way from up there and we were rejoicing in the cooling breeze.
We passed another Martello tower, and this one was for sale. It could possibly be converted into a nice home, but there is a drawback. It is a listed building, and one of the regulations of the listing is a ban on adding any more windows to the construction. This means it will always be very dark inside, and we couldn't think of any practical use to which it could be put with just one little tiny window part way up the wall. We think it will be 'for sale' a long time!
We sat on a seat to eat our lunch, and hailed a couple walking past because they had been our fellow campers at Stelling Minnis last night. We also remarked on a couple of children, a boy and a girl, who were playing on the beach completely ‘starkers’. If they had been toddlers we wouldn’t have thought anything of it, but they must have been about nine or ten and we thought they were really a bit big to be undressed like that on a public beach. They came up on to the wall with their parents, joined up with an elderly woman who was sitting near us and all went off to the car park, the children still without a stitch on! We shrugged, then carried on to Hythe military range.
Yes, another military range! On our overcrowded southern coastline, overlooking one of the world’s most active shipping lanes, a mere ten miles from the world’s busiest port, squeezed between two lively seaside towns, taking up two miles of beautiful sandy beach, on a sunny Sunday afternoon in August, the red flag was up and the Army was shooting over the beach and out to sea!! Can you credit it? Fortunately for us, walking around this range only involved an extra half mile because the area taken up is long and thin, but it did mean that the next 2½miles was a deadly walk along a pavement next to a very busy road. As soon as we turned away from the coast we lost our cooling breeze, and what with the traffic noise and fumes one side and the ‘pow! pow! pow!’ from the ranges the other:- (NO PHOTOGRAPHY!---who would want to anyway, there was nothing to take!---AND IF YOU WISH TO ENTER THE RANGE YOU MUST PRESENT I.D. AND CONSENT TO A BODY SEARCH!---only if the searcher is tall dark and handsome!) —by the time we had cut through the housing estates and crossed the village green in a not very select area of Hythe to get back to the coast by the red flag at the other end of the range, we were not happy bunnies!
We walked along the prom to the public conveniences, rested on the wall in the cooling breeze and had a drink of water—and then we both felt better. This part of Hythe is nicer, but it is not a very exciting place. We were hoping to see France by now, but it was too hazy out to sea. We could just make out the power station and lighthouses at Dungeness. It was a long walk along the prom, and when a road came alongside us it got a bit noisy as well as being dull.
Where the road started branching away from us, Colin noticed a Citroën garage that had a row of used cars for sale. I sat on the wall for a rest while he wandered over to see if they had any Diesel cars because our present Diesel Renault Clio is now six years old and it is time we changed it. He found a three year old Diesel Xantia which was within our price range but it had rather a high mileage. When we looked at it properly the next day, we were also shown a two year old Xantia with a very low mileage. We subsequently bought this, having negotiated a price just about within our range. So now we can say we have bought a car on our ‘Round-Britain-Walk’!
When we got to Sandgate, a few yards before we reached the car park where our car was sitting with flasks of hot water and tea bags in the boot, the prom sloped downwards to beach level and was covered in shingle washed up from the beach. There was a notice which I didn’t really understand saying something about this wasn’t a public right-of-way and you walked at your own risk and no cycling—but people were doing both so we carried on and took no notice until we reached the steps up to our car.

That ended Walk No.19, we shall pick up Walk No.20 next time at the foot of the steps leading down from the free car park in Sandgate. We had two very welcome cups of tea from our flask in the car whilst sitting on the sea wall watching families cope with squabbling kids on the beach below and listening to a group of neighbours singing and playing a guitar! Then we found a very nice pub for our evening meal, and returned to our camp at Stelling Minnis.

Walk 16 -- Camber Sands to Dungeness

Ages: Colin was 58 years and 89 days. Rosemary was 55 years and 216 days.

Weather: A thin cloud cover, but bright and very warm.

Location: From Camber Sands to Dungeness nuclear power station (across the military range!)

Distance: 5 miles.

Total distance: 121 miles.

Terrain: Sandy beach for the first half which was very pleasant, and then shingle beach which wasn’t.

Tide: Out, coming in.

Rivers to cross: None.

Ferries: None.

Piers: None.

Kissing gates: None.

Pubs: None. (They don’t have them on military ranges!)

‘English Heritage’ properties: None.

Ferris wheels: None.

Diversions: None.

How we got there and back: We drove to Camber Sands where we parked in a lay-by at the beginning of the range, where we had ended Walk No. 15.

At the end, we walked 3 miles along roads to the centre of Lydd. We had a bus timetable and even checked in a local shop that we were waiting at the right stop, but no bus turned up. After half an hour, Colin said he would walk the 4 miles back to Camber Sands, and set off. I hung around Lydd, and still no bus turned up until the one that was due an hour later---and even that was 5 minutes late! Meanwhile, Colin had cadged a lift after 2 miles and already returned with the car. We then drove to Stelling Minnis and camped in the field behind the ‘Rose & Crown’.

We had taken a gamble on there being no shooting at Lydd Range on a hot Saturday in the middle of the holiday season, and we were right. There was no red flag, and the little military tower at the end of the range was deserted. At last we are able to fit in the 5 miles of our Round-Britain-Trek that we had to miss out because of the Army!

There was a minibus and a couple of cars parked at the top of the sea wall and a lot of young people on the beach at that point. We scrambled down the very steep shingle bank, even walking along a breakwater to save a big jump down on to the beach. Then we sat on said breakwater to eat the first half of our lunch. It was early, but we had driven all the way from Bognor and we were hungry. We attended the funeral of our neighbour, Floss Bryanton, yesterday and Fred had given us a lot of the leftover food from her wake, so we ate quite well. Poor old Floss! A funny old stick, but we shall miss her.
As we walked along away from the minibus crowd, we were completely on our own. There did not even seem to be any birds—perhaps they don’t like being shot at most days of the week! There was a strip of water at the bottom of the shingle bank, so we walked on the hard sand between it and the sea. Colin kept saying that it was a mistake, that the strip of water was getting deeper, and that we were going to get wet feet inevitably because we would have to cross it at some point. He went on and on, so in the end I dashed across it in my boots and gaiters just to prove that it could be crossed with dry feet. Trouble was, he was not wearing gaiters because he was wearing shorts, so he crossed it ages further on by taking off his boots and socks and paddling across!

It was beautiful on that deserted beach. The crowd behind us disappeared in the haze and we were completely on our own—until we saw a couple approaching us from ahead. They were German, and had parked where we had in order to walk along the sand with no shoes. They were on their way back, and asked us how we planned to get back. (Little did I know that our plans would be thwarted because the bus we intended to catch would go missing!)

Unfortunately the sand bar got thinner and thinner until, about halfway along our Walk, it disappeared under the shingle. That meant 2½ miles of shingle walking which was very hard work. We could already see the nuclear power station looming ahead in the haze. There were no features on the beach except a few land drainage pipes. One had been pushed back, so it seemed, and looked like a cannon!After four miles we could see lots of people on the beach again and thought we had come to the end of our walk—but we were fooled. They had come down a track through the range and were fishing off the beach. It all looked very serious, I don’t know if it was a competition. No one seemed to have caught anything!

We sat on the shingle bank above them and ate the second instalment of our lunch while watching the grandparents cope with the children who mustn’t disturb their parents but were creating havoc nonetheless.
The last mile was very hard because the shingle was increasingly loose, but at last we reached the range barrier at the nuclear power station end and thankfully got on to the hard road for the trudge into Lydd. I was really glad that we had done that bit of the coast at last; it wasn’t very interesting but I had found it niggling that we'd had to leave it out.

That ended Walk No. 18, but out of order, we shall pick up Walk No. 19 next time at Dymchurch which is where we have really got to.
We walked three miles into Lydd, were let down by the ‘Stagecoach’ bus company—but we eventually got to Stelling Minnis where we camped for the night.

Walk 18 -- Littlestone-on-Sea to Dymchurch

Ages: Colin was 58 years and 51 days. Rosemary was 55 years and 178 days.
Weather: Sunny and quite warm, but thankfully with a pleasant sea breeze.
Location: From Littlestone-on-Sea to Dymchurch.
Distance: 3½ miles.
Total distance: 116 miles (+ 5 miles we have left out).
Terrain: To start with on hard sand, then along a concrete sea wall which turned into a very new and slightly softer surface towards Dymchurch.
Tide: Out.
Rivers to cross: None.
Ferries: None.
Piers: None.
Kissing gates: None.
Pubs: The ‘Ocean Inn’ at Dymchurch where Colin drank ‘Kentish Gold’ and I had a shandy because I was very hot and thirsty!
‘English Heritage’ properties: No. 3 at Dymchurch, a Martello tower built to repel the invasion of the French during Napoléonic times—but it was closed!
Ferris wheels: None.
Diversions: None.
How we got there and back: We packed up our camp at Stelling Minnis. We drove to New Romney where once again we parked our car round the back of the station. Then we walked the half mile to Littlestone-on-Sea.
At the end, we caught a train on the ‘Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch’ light railway back to New Romney station, then we drove home to Bognor.

By the time we got to the covered shelter at Littlestone it was lunchtime, so the first thing we did was to sit down like a couple of old fogies and eat the absolutely delicious pork pie we had just bought at a local butcher’s! That really did start the walk off well.
We sat looking out to sea at the remains of one of those ‘mulberry’ harbours that litter our southern coastline (there is a piece on the beach at Bognor just west of Nyewood Lane where we started this trek, and our children loved playing on it when they were young, calling it ‘the wreck’!) They are pieces of a portable harbour which was constructed in great secrecy during the winter of 1943/1944. Winston Churchill realised that the allied troops would never be able to invade the continent of Europe and defeat Hitler’s forces unless they could have the use of a harbour to land tanks, jeeps, artillery, back-up forces and supplies. All the harbours along the French coast were too well defended, so he gave the order to construct an artificial harbour with the words, “Do not argue the matter, the difficulties will argue themselves!” For eight months, huge hollow cassions were cast in concrete and then sunk, mostly in the Thames estuary, so that they were hidden from view. In the weeks leading up to D-Day in June 1944 they were refloated and towed under cover of darkness to various points on the south coast, mostly in Sussex. Then, just a few days after the momentous 6^th June 1944, they were towed in long strings the hundred miles across the Channel to the seaside hamlet of Arromanches on the Normandie coast near Bayeux. Several old ships had been deliberately sunk to form the harbour boundaries, and the ‘mulberry’ blocks were pieced together to form a temporary harbour. The whole venture was a great success despite tremendous storms while it was being constructed, and despite the fact that about half the ‘mulberry’ blocks broke loose at some point on the 24 hour journey and never made it to Normandie. The English and French coasts are littered with the remains more than fifty years later, and many more must be at the bottom of the sea. And the name 'mulberry'? It is a codeword, meaningless to the enemy so that they had no idea what anyone was talking about--just like D-Day which is also a code word. (For that matter, when tanks were invented during the First World War, that was a codeword too!)
Having finished our lunch, we walked along the sand for a while because it was so nice, and noticed one of the houses over the shingle bank was a tower a number of stories high. We couldn’t be bothered to divert to look at it, so at the end of the day we drove there. It is a Victorian water tower situated in a road between two other houses, but it is absolutely derelict. Such a pity, because if someone had the money to do it up it could be converted into a very unusual house!
I was enjoying walking along the sand with the breeze blowing in my face but Colin kept on about not being able to see ‘the view’, so in the end we scrambled up on to the sea wall—I say ‘scrambled’ because the wooden steps had long since gone to meet their maker! His ‘view’ was the local golf course! However, we stayed up there and could see a huge plume of black smoke rising into the sky a long way ahead. Suddenly a fire engine went tearing along the road, but we never did find out anything more.
As we approached Dymchurch, we noticed that the posts for the groynes all seemed to be set in rows, like some ancient ‘standing sticks’ or something. The seagulls were making good use of them anyway. The seawall has only recently been upgraded here, and the surface we found ourselves walking on was very gentle on the feet, softer than concrete but by no means sticky. Quite a few people were about, lots of old fogies sitting on seats or staggering along the prom, and some families with children on the beach even though it is not school holidays yet. As we passed the fairground at Dymchurch I looked for a Ferris wheel, but there was none. I've a terrible feeling that they are too old-fashioned for this modern day and age, and I am despairing of ever getting a ride on one!
We left the sea wall just past the Martello tower at Dymchurch. This tower is an ‘English Heritage’ property, but we were amazed to find it was closed! There was a notice saying —‘due to a leaking roof’—but we wondered if the real reason was because it costs too much to have it manned every day. They said there were ‘special’ open days but didn’t give any dates. We have visited it before, so we weren’t too put out. We went to the pub instead!

That ended Walk No. 17, we shall pick up Walk No.18 at the Martello tower in Dymchurch –unless we devise a way of walking the 5 miles across the military range meantime. We walked to Dymchurch station and caught the diddy little steam train (it goes at quite a lick!) back to New Romney. After yet more tea, we drove home to Bognor.

Walk17 -- Dungeness to Littlestone-on-Sea

Ages: Colin was 58 years and 50 days. Rosemary was 55 years and 177 days.

Weather: Sunny and quite warm, but thankfully with a pleasant sea breeze.

Location: From Dungeness to Littlestone-on-Sea.

Distance: 7 miles.

Total distance: 112½ miles (+ 5 miles we have left out).

Terrain: A lot of shingle beach which was tough going. Fortunately the tide was right out so we were able to walk on hard sand for the second half of the hike.

Tide: Out.

Rivers to cross: None.

Ferries: None.

Piers: None.

Kissing gates: None.

Pubs: None on the walk, but in the evening we drove to the hamlet of Stowting where we visited the ‘Tiger Inn’ to drink ‘Old Peculier’. That was nice, but the meal was over-priced and not much of it, this ‘nouveau cuisine’ idea. We shall not be going there again, we don’t like being ripped off!

‘English Heritage’ properties: None.

Ferris wheels: None.

Diversions: None.

How we got there and back: We were already camping at Stelling Minnis. After breakfast, we drove to New Romney where we caught the ‘Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch’ light railway (diddy little carriages, everything is one third normal size!) to Dungeness. After climbing the old lighthouse and visiting the nuclear power station, we then walked along the shingle bank to the end of the military range.

At the end, we walked the half mile up the road from the seafront to our car, downed two very welcome cups of tea, and then drove to Stowting for a disappointing meal before going back to our camp.

We had made enquiries yesterday at the Camber end of the military range about the shooting. They do shoot out to sea, and it would be very dangerous to try to walk along there even at low tide. Yesterday they were firing until 4.30pm, today until 11pm and tomorrow until 4.30pm. That leaves us with two alternatives, either walk round the whole range (about 8 miles on boring roads) or leave out the 5 mile section until a later date. We chose the latter. We do think that in this day and age, the military should give back these coastal areas to the public, especially ones bang in the middle of a holiday area like this one! After many years of hassle, the ‘Needles’ on the Isle of Wight were eventually given back, so what about the rest of these ranges? After all, they still have Salisbury Plain and oodles of land around Aldershot that no one has much interest in, GIVE US BACK OUR COASTLINE!

Before we started this walk, we had a very enjoyable ride on the Romney, Hythe & Dymchurch railway which is made one third the normal size—steam engines, carriages, lines, the stations, everything! It was great fun! The smell of the steam brought back nostalgic memories of childhood days, when we always travelled by steam train.

The whole Point of Dungeness is shingle. I don’t know why people live there, I couldn’t stand those gardens with no soil. We were amazed at the brightness of the flowers, especially the masses of brilliant red poppies. It was a glorious show.On arrival in Dungeness, we climbed the old lighthouse which is open to the public since it is no longer used. When they built the nuclear power station, it partially obscured the light so they had to build another lighthouse a bit taller and nearer the Point. When this one first operated, the light was just candles! We had a wonderful view from the top.Then we visited the nuclear power station, but the visitor centre was full of school kids being a nuisance--perhaps I am just hyper-sensitive but even the power station staff were getting rattled until they went. We would have had to have waited 1½ hours for a tour which would have taken up most of our day, so we decided not to bother. On our walk round there we saw a number of different butterflies, many we couldn’t identify, and once again we admired the variety of brightly coloured flowers growing on the shingle.

After all that interest, our actual walk was rather dull! By the time we reached the military range it was time to stop for lunch so we found a stone to sit on. There were a couple of fishermen on the beach there, no one else at all. We walked along the shingle at the bottom of the beach, right by the waterline hoping it would be more compacted there. It wasn’t!

As we passed the nuclear power station, we could see rings in the water where they suck in the water and let it out again. Hundreds of seagulls were on the water at those two places, and hundreds more yet on the beach at the same spot.

We could only conclude that this warm water means thousands of fish, probably feeding on millions of shrimps which are feeding on radioactive plankton! (We couldn’t see whether they glowed in the dark because it was bright sunshine!!)

As we neared the Point, I suggested we divert to the pub for a shandy even though it was not listed as a ‘real ale’ establishment. I was just plain thirsty walking in that heat! Imagine our amazement when they locked the doors in our faces because it was ‘closing time’---3pm! Crowds of people come down on the railway in the summer season, but are all gone by 6pm when the pub would be thinking of opening again! ONLY IN ENGLAND CAN YOU NOT GET A DRINK IN A HOLIDAY AREA IN THE MIDDLE OF A SUMMER’S AFTERNOON! We trudged back to the beach, sipping warm water from our bottles, and took pictures of each other at the very Point of Dungeness.

We started to follow a concrete road behind the beach because our ankles and feet were aching with all the shingle walking, but it turned sharp left after about a hundred yards while the shingle footpath continued in our direction across shingle fields and wending its way past dilapidated boat sheds.

Eventually Colin climbed up the shingle bank and yelled back, “It’s sand!” The tide was still right out, so we scrambled down the steep shingle to walk on firm sand for the next hour and a half. It was glorious! Everything seemed perfect about the day, except that we got very tired towards the end. But I think you can say my broken legs are completely better because I have done all this far-from-easy walking over the past two days without my trekking sticks. I feel they are a bit of an encumbrance now.At first we met no one, we had the whole world (well, the beach) to ourselves. Then we began to meet dribs and drabs of people, mostly out walking their dogs. A couple were attempting to fly a kite, then another pair had a radio-controlled aeroplane with which they buzzed us. A girl came over the shingle on a horse and cantered along the sand. It was a relaxing dreamy sort of afternoon. We came across a dead dogfish, and twice we stumbled over a dead jellyfish stranded on the shore. They were huge! We saw a few ships out to sea, and the remains of one of those 'mulberry' harbours came into view as we approached Littlestone. We came up off the beach early because we were not sure of our bearings, and walked along the green behind the beach. Even there it was rough grass growing through shingle and very uneven underfoot.

That ended Walk No. 16, we shall pick up Walk No. 17 at the covered shelter on the green at Littlestone-on-Sea at the exact spot where we left the seafront this time. We walked half a mile up the road to where we had parked our car near the station. After two ‘desperate’ cups of tea (we never got a drink apart from the water we were carrying with us), we drove off to Stowting for ‘Old Peculier’ and a very disappointing meal before returning to our camp. On our way we saw a fox loping across the road, and later we saw a little owl sitting on a fence post. Magic!

Walk 15 -- Rye to Camber Sands

Ages: Colin was 58 years and 49 days. Rosemary was 55 years and 176 days.

Weather: Dull and overcast, but the sun came out towards the end of the walk. Warm and comfortable.

Location: From Rye to Camber Sands.

Distance: 6½ miles.

Total distance: 105½ miles.

Terrain: Along pavements in Rye, then along a grassy riverbank which was very pleasant to walk on, then a soft sandy beach (a bit too soft in some places!), and finally along a concrete sea wall with a shingle gap in the middle for about 100 yards.

Tide: Out, but coming in.

Rivers to cross: Nos.5, 6 and 7, the Brede, Tillingham and Rother at Rye.

Ferries: None.

Piers: None.

Kissing gates: None.

Pubs: The ‘Ypres Castle’ in Rye where we drank ‘Adnams Broadside’ and ‘Harvey’s XX’ mild.

‘English Heritage’ properties: None.

Ferris wheels: None.

Diversions: None.

How we got there and back: We camped the night before at Stelling Minnis. After a leisurely breakfast, we drove to Camber Sands and parked the car. Then we caught a bus through Rye and got off at the Rye Harbour Road, just a few yards from where we finished the last walk.

At the end, we drove to Old Romney to have a meal at yet another ‘real ale’ pub, then returned to our camp at Stelling Minnis.

The river divides into three at Rye, and you have to cross each branch separately. First we crossed the River Brede, then it was only about a hundred yards around the corner where we crossed the River Tillingham. We walked along a pleasant greensward, where there are notices asking you not to feed the birds because they are becoming aggressive, and sat on a seat to have our lunch.

Colin was anxious to get to the pub before it closed, so we went into the town and it was soon found—it was open all day! It is called ‘Ypres Castle’, and is tucked in under the wall of Ypres Tower, a 13^th Century fort. We sat in a little enclosed garden to drink and it was very pleasant.

We had a walk round Rye, it is a lovely little town with cobbled streets and ancient buildings.
Along with Winchelsea, it allied with the Cinque Ports of Hastings, Romney, Hythe, Dover and Sandwich. By the 13^th Century these ports were so powerful they made their own rules and acted almost as an independent state. They controlled most of the trade between Britain and Europe, but the harbour here at Rye silted up and so it lost its importance. The title ‘Lord Warden of the Cinque Ports’ is now an honorary title only and is presently held by the Queen Mother who will be a hundred years old in about six weeks time!

We didn’t go to the famous ‘Mermaid Inn’ where buccaneers and mercenaries used to hang out in yesteryear because we have been there before and reckon it’s a rip-off set up for gullible Americans! We planned to climb the church tower, but changed our minds when we saw the price had gone up to £2 (it was 50p last time we were here!) Come off it, it isn’t that high! We found an ancient water tower which was interesting, but like all these Victorian water features the pump was broken and it can no longer be used. We found two pie shops and bought a pasty in each, then we returned to the river and continued our walk. We trudged through some boring boatyards, then nearly missed the way where some ‘bijou’ residences have been built with ‘strictly private’ notices all over the place. The ‘public footpath’ notice was there, but very insignificant so that it could easily be missed—Colin found it so we walked boldly and loudly through! Then on by some gardens and we were at the bridge over the River Rother. The bridge was very busy with traffic, and also with children just turning out of a local school.

Immediately over the bridge, we turned sharp right, through a gate, and we were in a different world! A grassy river bank with only the sheep for company, and the occasional bird. Among the gulls, Colin was convinced that he saw a ringed plover, and later on a reed bunting which is a rare sight these days. We followed the raised river bank which was a lot straighter than the curly river edge, and was the proper path so we didn’t have to keep climbing over fences! As we approached the sea, we took a short cut ‘at your own risk’ said the notice (we were very brave!) across an area which sometimes gets flooded at high tide. It was as dry as a bone except for one muddy stream which we managed to jump across without too much difficulty. The last half mile or so was a gravel track used by the local sailing club.

It was a very clear day, so the foghorn in the river entrance was not going. We were pleased about that because it was on our side and we walked right underneath it to get to the ‘corner’—Colin insisted on it, saying it is in the rules! We sat on a wall near there and ate our pasties. One was very much nicer than the other, so when we had each eaten half we swapped—aren't we nice to each other?

Then followed a very pleasant walk along the sands to Camber. The sand was soft to start with and we had fun leaving footprints.

However, that was quite hard going so we walked further up the beach on the edge of the shingle, then later on the sand was hard so we were OK. When we came to the spot where our car was parked in the road just over the sea wall, we decided to take a break. We drove the last mile along to where the military range starts, parked and had a cup of tea.
Feeling refreshed, we started to walk back to where we had picked up the car so we could walk the last mile in the right direction. After about 200 yards, we stopped to talk to a man who had parked his car there and was admiring the view. He was very excited because he had seen two stoats that morning! He then offered us a lift to wherever we wanted to go, so we asked him to take us back a mile and we got out where we had originally parked our car and resumed our walk from the exact spot where we had left the sea wall. It wasn’t very exciting, and only took us about twenty minutes, but it saved us a bit of time.

We ended our Walk at the start of the military range, where the Army had been firing all day. The red flag was down by then, but it was too late to walk any further. We had made enquiries in the morning and we know that tomorrow they are firing from dawn to about 11pm, so we will have to leave the next 5 miles out for the moment.

We are too young to die!

That ended Walk No. 15, we shall pick up Walk No. 16 at the other end of the military range towards Dungeness. We drove into Old Romney where we had our dinner at yet another ‘real ale’ pub, then drove back to our camp at Stelling Minnis.