Walk 22 -- Folkestone Warren to Dover

Ages: Colin was 59 years and 44 days. Rosemary was 56 years and 186 days.
Weather: Hot and sunny, but with a little breeze in exposed places.
Location: From Folkestone Warren to Dover Marina.
Distance: 7½ miles.
Total distance: 142 miles.
Terrain: First along a Second World War concrete gun platform between the beach and the cliffs, then we crossed the railway via a footbridge and climbed the chalk cliffs using wooden-barred steps. We walked several miles along the grassy cliff tops before descending to beach level again via a tarmacked path, railway footbridge and concrete steps. The beach was sandy at first but soon turned to leg-shattering loose shingle. After that it was along roads, pavements and a concrete pier.
Tide: In.
Rivers to cross: None.
Ferries: None.
Piers: No.8 at Dover, but it was a concrete one!
Kissing gates: None.
Pubs: ‘The Mogul’ at Dover where we enjoyed Goacher’s Mild and Durham Prior’s Gold (at least, Colin did, I was so thirsty I had a pint of shandy!)
‘English Heritage’ properties: None, though we did try to get to the ‘Western Heights’.
Ferris wheels: None.
Diversions: No.11 up the cliffs and along the top because the tide was in. This meant we missed visiting Samphire Hoe, a new bit of Britain which consists of the rock brought up from digging out the Channel Tunnel!
How we got there and back: We were already camping at Folkestone Warren, so we started our walk directly from the campsite.
At the end, we walked to the bus station in the centre of Dover and caught a bus to eastern Folkestone. We then walked a mile back to the campsite.

We started our walk fairly early this morning in brilliant sunshine. We could see France quite clearly on the horizon, and could make out Cap-Blanc-Nez and Cap-Gris-Nez. On the beach directly below our campsite was a big rectangle of concrete; we can only assume it was a gun platform built to house artillery for our defence during those terrible years of the Second World War when Hitler’s troops were in sight across the narrow strip of water between us and France.
It was hot walking along the bottom of the cliffs towards Dover, very little breeze down there. We met a smattering of people walking their dogs. We came to another large concrete rectangle where one dogwalker stopped to talk, he didn’t seem very bright especially as he said he thought Butlins in Bognor Regis was a wonderful place! So when he advised us that he thought the tide was too far in for us to get along the bottom of the cliffs to Dover (embellishing his story with tales of helicopter rescues and ‘wouldn’t that be exciting though?’) we really did not know whether to believe him. We thanked him politely and said we would go a little further and take a look. About half a mile further on we were caught up by a man wearing just a pair of underpants(!) who advised us that we were about half an hour too late because the tide was now in far enough to lap the bottom of the cliffs this side of Samphire Hoe. He told us how to get up to the top of the cliff, and he did seem to know what he was talking about. We did wonder whether he just didn’t want us hiking past his nudist beach, but we took his advice and turned back.
We climbed a track which looked as if it went up the cliffs, but at the top was a locked gate behind which the railway ran into a tunnel. I could see the footbridge further along, so down we went again and retraced our steps to the place where we had met the first chap with the dog—teach us not to listen to the locals! We climbed a very similar track there, and then started climbing steps until we got to the railway, but this time we were at the footbridge over it. On the other side the path divided; it looked as if it went up if we turned left, but Colin looked at the map and declared we must turn right even though it looked as if it went down again that way. At first the path followed the railway, almost to the tunnel, but suddenly we started climbing 393 steps (we didn’t count them, someone at the top told us!) to the very top of the cliff.
It was a hot and thirsty climb, sweat was pouring off us in buckets! Just before we broke cover at the top, I decided I had better go to the loo because the clifftop would be too exposed. We hadn’t met anyone until then, but suddenly a man on his bike appeared and then about a dozen hikers!
We were feeling a bit dischuffed because we had been walking two hours by then, we were very hot and thirsty, yet we had only progressed one mile and we weren’t even out of Folkestone Warren! Colin was very proud of himself that he didn’t walk across the field to a ‘real ale’ pub which was just there! We continued along a path which came out into a track by a road, the track was the cycleway to Dover and we passed a couple of new sculptures which acted as mileposts on the National Cycle Network. The footpath soon diverted and went along nearer the cliff edge.
We were even allowed to walk through a field of cows, how refreshing not to find our way barred by red notices threatening £5000 fines! The path had obviously become very overgrown in recent months, probably because, like most footpaths in the country, it had been closed for three months due to the ‘foot & mouth’ fiasco. It had been recently mown, but occasionally they had tried to divert it away from the cliff edge because it was becoming dangerous due to erosion. Trouble is, mowing a new path is not enough, it needs ‘walking in’ to smooth out all the bumps. We ignored these ‘diversions, it was easier walking on the old smooth paths and we were never perilously close to the cliff edge.
We made good progress. We passed many derelict concrete constructions which we could only conclude were Second World War defences. This clifftop was the most vulnerable in Britain, and must have been teeming with artillery and all the trappings during those years. One place looked like a derelict barracks and rifle range, another was a huge vertical concrete square with a circular depression in the side facing the sea. We concluded that it once held a radar dish, but we didn’t know.(We later found out it was a ‘sound mirror’, invented after the First World War and a precursor to radar.) We sat on the roof of one of the dozens of ‘pill-boxes’ which are sunk into the clifftop to eat our lunch. From there we had a birds-eye view of Samphire Hoe.
The idea of digging a tunnel under the English Channel was first put forward nearly two hundred years ago. In 1802, a French engineer declared that it was possible to tunnel through the chalk syncline which is the geology of the Channel area. Napoléon was interested, but he was more interested in warmongering so nothing came of it. Again and again, throughout the 19^th century, the proposal was put forward by the French, but rebuffed by the British for security reasons. In the 1860s, a Frenchman called Thomé de Gamond and an Englishman called Sir John Hawkshaw, produced practical plans. From these, private companies dedicated to the project were formed on both sides of the Channel. In the 1880s, digging actually started at Sangatte in France and at Folkestone in England. The media of the day, i.e. the newspapers, were dead set against the idea and brought pressure to bear on the Government. Only 2000 yards had been dug on the English side when the whole project was shut down in the interests of national security. The two tunnels were sealed off and became derelict.
It was not until the 1950s, after two World Wars in which the English Channel was of great strategic importance, that the idea was mooted again. By then, it was considered that, in this missile age, worries about security were obsolete. New companies were formed, a Study Group was established, and even the merits of a Channel Bridge were considered. But in 1964 they agreed to build a rail tunnel. The next problem was finance. It took another nine years before a treaty was finalised between the British and French Governments, and they took the decision to proceed. Digging commenced in 1974 at almost the same spots in Folkestone and Sangatte where it had ceased ninety years before. It was estimated that the tunnel would take five to six years to build and cost in the region of a billion pounds.
But they had hopelessly underestimated the whole project. Many people, and I must say I was among them, said that it could never be done, it was too ambitious by far. The estimated completion date was put back and back while the estimated costs rose by millions. In just under a year, when just 1½ miles had been dug out on each side of the Channel, the British Government cancelled the whole project because it said it simply couldn’t afford it any longer. Three years later the idea resurfaced, but again the British Government stipulated that no public money should be put into it. A further three years went by, and suddenly the British and French Governments jointly issued an invitation for privately funded companies to put forward their proposals. Four serious projects were considered, and finally, in 1987, the plan by Eurotunnel (twin rail tunnels for shuttle trains to carry road vehicles with a third service tunnel in between) was ratified. Digging could begin!
It took six years to build. The Tunnel was dug out from each end, and when they met in the middle on the 1^st December 1990 they were only a couple of millimetres out! The tunnellers put their arms through the hole and shook hands—the English tunneller claimed he could ‘smell the garlic’! For the first time in twenty thousand years, Britain was joined to France! On the 1^st June 1994, the first freight train sped through, and in the following months the high-speed trains were opened up to passengers, cars, lorries and coaches. There was a set-back in 1996 when a lorry caught fire halfway across, filling the train and the Tunnel with smoke. (The people escaped into the service tunnel from where they had to be rescued.) The Tunnel was closed for about six months while damage was repaired and better safety measures implemented. This incident was devastating financially because the Tunnel was losing money hand over fist and, although very popular in the twenty-first century, it has yet to run at a profit. Colin and I have used the Tunnel once, on a day-trip to Calais in 1998. We were very impressed with the speed (25 minutes only underground) and smoothness of the ride, but we never saw the sea and didn’t feel as if we had been abroad at all! We have used the cheaper ferry ever since, at least the view is better!
An awful lot of chalk was dug out in the building of the Channel Tunnel, and it had to go somewhere. That is what Samphire Hoe is all about, it is an extra bit of England that consists of all the chalk that was extracted from the English end. It was dumped at the bottom of the cliffs between Folkestone and Dover, and the idea is to turn it into a nature reserve. It did look a bit bare from our ‘crow’s-nest’ viewpoint, but several ponds have been created on it and the white chalk was beginning to turn green.
I expect it looks a lot better from down there, but the only way we could get on to it at high tide was by walking through the road tunnel which leads down through the cliffs, and then we would be going back on ourselves. We decided to save it up for a few years when it is more established. We were intrigued by a fenced off area at the eastern end that seemed to have a number of towers with fans in the top. Is it some kind of renewable energy plant?
According to our map, we crossed over the Channel Tunnel at the eastern end of Samphire Hoe. Our path became very ‘undulating’ but was quite spectacular, the land sloping backwards from the cliff edge. The only problem was that we were merging closer and closer to the main road taking the traffic to and from the world’s busiest port—lorries by the hundred, coaches full of elderly holidaymakers and cars - cars - cars - cars - cars! There was the constant drone of traffic which got louder and louder. Eventually we descended a tarmac path until we were right next to this dreadful road.
We decided to deviate under it and follow the North Downs Way through a housing estate and up to the Western Heights, an ‘English Heritage’ property we planned to visit. But all paths leading up the mound from the estate, including the North Downs Way, were blocked by padlocked gates! We asked a local if he knew why they were padlocked, and he said it was because of the ‘foot & mouth’ restrictions. At this I exploded with anger. This is an ancient monument we were talking about, not a livestock farm. There wasn’t a sign of a grazing animal anywhere, nor had there been for a very long time by the look of the height of the undergrowth. The only case of the disease in Kent had been miles away on the Isle of Sheppey, and that had been five months ago. I asked the man if anyone had complained to the authorities about this little piece of hypocrisy, and he replied that he found it a bit of a nuisance not being able to walk his dog up there anymore, but he wasn’t a protesting kind of person—so they get away with it because of such people’s apathy. (I did complain later that afternoon to the man in the Tourist Information Centre in Dover, but he was very non-committal in his replies.)
We made a new plan—to continue our coastal walk today to the middle of Dover and tomorrow we would come by car to visit all the ‘English Heritage’ properties in the area. So we retraced our steps to the tunnel under the road and continued downhill walking next to it. Not much fun, but then we found a footbridge over the railway which was still on our seaward side (it goes in and out of tunnels all along the cliffs we had walked over) and down a lot of steps to the beach. It was pleasant walking along the sand for a bit, but then it deteriorated into shingle and we were too tired to take it in good temper! There was a high fence behind which there was nothing, it used to be a marshalling yard according to the map. We were relieved to find there was an open gate at the end and we were able to get off the beach just before the high wall of the Western Docks.
The first pier at Western Docks, where the train ferry used to embark and where we once caught a ferry (in 1991, I think) to the ski train, was plastered with notices about fishing permits. We assumed it was the same set-up as Folkestone Pier which we had been asked to leave because we were not fishing, so we didn’t even try this one. We got a bit lost in a lorry park, but eventually realised that we would have to walk over a road bridge leading inland to get to the next pier. It was all very confusing, but we coped!
The second pier was much more user-friendly, and we walked along looking at the old Hoverport which is no longer in use—they use the area as a car park for the Sea-Cat now. In 1998 we booked a weekend in France going out on the Hovercraft. Noisy, smelly things—it may have been quick but neither of us enjoyed the journey. They are unsafe if the sea is at all rough, so we had to come back on a Sea-Cat. I am not easily seasick, but I spent the whole journey lying on the floor! The Hovercraft went out of business sometime last year, and we watched several Sea-Cats come in and out as we walked the length of the pier. They were bouncing up and down even in the harbour, I began to feel queasy just watching them! That is why we now always cross the Channel using the old-fashioned ferry; the ships are quite fast, very comfortable and they are also cheaper. There was a café at the far end of the pier, so we bought a much-needed mug of tea each.
We passed several groups of schoolchildren, both English and French, on our way back and along the marina until we were opposite the Tourist Information Centre. (I was relieved I was not in charge of all the little darlings!) We stopped to look at a sculpture which is a tribute to all the people involved in the rescue of the British Army from the beaches of Dunkirk in 1940.

That ended Walk No.22, we shall visit all the ‘English Heritage sites in Dover for Walk No.23 and pick up Walk No.24 next time at the Dunkirk memorial on Dover Marina. We called at the Tourist Information Centre for directions to the ‘real ale’ pub Colin had picked out of the Guide (and to complain about the padlocked gates on the North Downs Way!) Having refreshed ourselves at the ‘Mogul’, we caught a bus back to Folkestone and returned to our campsite.

Walk 21 -- Folkestone Harbour to Folkestone Warren

Ages: Colin was 59 years and 43 days. Rosemary was 56 years and 185 days.
Weather: Hot and sunny, but with quite a breeze which was very welcome!
Location: From Folkestone Harbour to Folkestone Warren.
Distance: 1½ miles.
Total distance: 134½ miles.
Terrain: Concrete esplanade and a bit of sandy beach, then grass, down steps and along a Second World War gun platform between the beach and the cliffs.
Tide: Out.
Rivers to cross: None.
Ferries: None.
Piers: None.
Kissing gates: None.
Pubs: None.
‘English Heritage’ properties: None.
Ferris wheels: None.
Diversions: No.10 round a Martello Tower because the cliff had collapsed in the recent heavy rains.
How we got there and back: We packed up our camping stuff and drove from Bognor to Folkestone. We looked at two camp sites and didn’t like either of them, so we parked near the harbour and decided to start our walk before too much of the day was gone.
At the end, we were walking past ‘the Warren’ and thought we would have a look at the campsite there. We liked what we saw, so we stopped our walk for the day and Colin went back for the car. We pitched our tent overlooking the beach within the sound of the sea and we relished in salubrious views in all directions!

Ten months! We never thought it would be that long before we would be able to resume our walk round poor beleaguered Britain when we finished Walk 20 last August; in fact, we had planned to get to Herne Bay by Christmas. At this rate, we’ll be lucky to get there by next Christmas! This is what has been happening…
In September we had the fuel crisis. We pay more for our fuel in Britain than anywhere else in the world, and this protest seemed to come from the heart of the people. It certainly took the Government by surprise! They said that the high prices were nothing to do with tax, but everyone knew that that was a blatant lie. We had watched the French successfully demonstrate by blocking all their main roads with tractors, a protest that Colin and I got caught up in—but that’s another story! People said we were too complacent, and that if the French could do it so could we. They began picketing fuel depots, and tanker drivers turned round refusing to drive out to petrol stations. It was all very civilised and non-aggressive, despite what the Government said, and from small beginnings it snowballed within hours. Long queues formed at petrol stations, and within a week the whole country had ground to a halt! The Government were furious, calling the demonstrators irresponsible and making out that people were dying because emergency services couldn’t get to them and operations were being cancelled and old people were being left stranded, etc etc. It was all lies, people were severely inconvenienced but 95% of them supported the protests and were therefore prepared to put up with it. Hence we had to cancel plans to drive to Folkestone to continue our Walk. We had a tank almost full of Diesel, but decided to only use the car if we really needed to because we didn’t know how long all this was going on. After a week, everyone decided that enough was enough, and fuel was delivered once more. It took about another week for things to return to normal. Did the Government listen to the people? NOT A BIT OF IT!
It had been a pretty wet year so far, we had been very lucky the days we had chosen for our Walks. But then the rain came down with a vengeance, hour after hour, day after day, week after week! Fields flooded, roads flooded, houses flooded, shops flooded, even a brewery flooded much to Colin’s dismay! Whole towns disappeared under water—Southsea, Ryde, Lewes, a man came out of a shop in Uckfield High Street and was washed hundreds of yards down a river he never even knew was there! Chichester was so determined not to flood that the fire brigade diverted the River Lavant through hose pipes which stretched across the city under little wooden bridges wherever they crossed a road—it was an amazing piece of ‘Heath-Robinson’ engineering which cost over a million pounds! I had great difficulty getting to the various schools where I was working because of the floods, and had some quite interesting journeys! Most of our favourite footpaths were under several feet of water. In October we went to India (saw tigers in the wild!) and while we were away a tornado ripped through Bognor tearing the whole roofs off a dozen or so houses! (Fortunately not ours.) November was declared the wettest November ever, then the year 2000 was declared the wettest year since records began. We all began reading up the construction of Noah’s Ark, and decided to wait for the Spring before continuing with our Round-Britain-Walk.
But what horrors the Spring had in store for us! Early in February we had treated ourselves to a week in the Yorkshire Dales, a ‘special offer’ that was almost cheaper than staying at home. We enjoyed a few Winter walks in the ice and snow, and looked forward to the Spring. Two weeks later we rented a cottage down in Cornwall (also very cheap at that time of year) and enjoyed some coastal walking though the wind was bitterly cold. It was right at the end of that week–we just completed our holiday in time–that we heard about the first case of ‘foot & mouth’ disease on a farm in Northumberland.

Well, the world went mad!

It was the first case of ‘foot & mouth’ in this country since 1967. Then they slaughtered all the affected animals, and in that way managed to contain and eradicate the illness within about six weeks. Farming has changed enormously in the past thirty years, animals are now transported all over the country as they change hands time and time again in their short lives. Animals travel hundreds of miles to be slaughtered because most small slaughter-houses have been closed down due to ‘health & safety’ regulations they cannot afford. The disease spread like wildfire—Essex, Cumbria, Devon, Dumfries, Yorkshire, Somerset—and it is still going on even as I write this four months later!
Now, a few facts about ‘foot & mouth’ disease. It only affects cloven-hoofed animals, humans cannot catch it or any form of illness from a diseased animal. The virus is extremely contagious and can be passed on through contact, walking on the same ground, on clothes and shoes/boots, in water and even short distances on the wind. It is a very uncomfortable condition for the animal that catches it, but it is not dangerous. Very few animals die of it, and if nurtured for about a week they will make a complete recovery. So what is all the panic about? PROFIT! That’s what! Animals which catch ‘foot & mouth’ waste away, and when they recover they take months of feeding up to get back to their huge, in many cases obese, weight. Then the meat cannot be sold because the animal has had the disease. That is the argument against vaccination, so no animal in this country has any resistance whatsoever to this particular virus.
Slaughter of every animal on a farm where the disease was suspected, and every animal on the neighbouring farms was ordered by the Government. Slaughter first and ask questions afterwards was the order of the day. (It turned out that one third of ‘cases’ were not ‘foot & mouth’ at all, but it was too late when all the animals were dead!) Farmers were devastated, their whole life’s work shot before their eyes. Some barricaded their healthy animals within their farms and pleaded with tears in their eyes. Many were suicidal. One eccentric woman who kept an exotic breed of goats as pets herded her eight healthy animals into her front room, but they broke down the door and shot them! Carcasses were piled up in farm gateways for days awaiting destruction, and probably the virus was blowing in the wind or spread by crows. They had to bring in the Army to make huge pyres to burn the dead animals. The countryside was filled with smoke, probably spreading the virus and increasing the risk of cancer in all those living nearby. The fires burned for weeks. Other animals were taken for burial, sometimes to ‘clean’ areas of the country which were unaffected by the virus. It was absolute madness!
Meanwhile, a complete ban was put on the movement of animals, even from one field to another on the same farm. Very soon the animals ran out of grass and were standing miserably in mud. Farmers ran out of supplementary food which they couldn’t afford anyway, so animals suffered and died in appalling circumstances. How did all this affect us? Every single footpath and cycleway in the country was closed! There is no scientific evidence whatsoever that ramblers spread the ‘foot & mouth’ virus, but red notices sprang up all over the countryside threatening a £5000 fine if we so much as put a foot over that stile! The countryside was closed, the only place we could go for a walk was through a town or along a beach.
Of course, the countryside these days does not just belong to farmers. Tourism is a far bigger industry, and nobody came! (Rumours spread across America that we were all dying of starvation, and walking around with disfiguring blisters on our mouths and feet!!) More jobs were lost and more businesses went bust in the tourist industry than there ever were on the farms. Hypocrisy was rife from the Government downwards. They postponed the General Election for a month after enormous pressure, but the disease was still widespread during their campaigning throughout May and not one candidate mentioned ‘foot & mouth’ ever. It was dropped from the News and completely swept under the carpet, yet every day still there are four or five new cases in the Yorkshire Dales or Somerset. It was left to local County Councils to each decide their footpath policy, the Government completely passed the buck.
There were no cases at all in West Sussex, nor in any of the neighbouring counties. Under pressure, they announced that on May 1^st they were going to reopen 500 footpaths. I printed the list of these footpaths off the internet—it was the biggest fraud out! Nearly every single path was in a town, linking one street on an estate with another! One was the path linking Kenilworth Road with Hawthorn Road which I walk down on average three times a week to post a letter or hike to the beach! They even listed (and I quote) “from the boat pound behind the beach huts to the Waverley public house”! Well, isn’t that an extension of the esplanade, at least four miles from a field where livestock might graze? Their hypocrisy beggared belief, especially as there were a couple of countryside footpaths listed which just happened to cross golf courses! From feeling frustrated, and also rather depressed, at not being able to get out on the Downs, I began to feel very angry. From what I have read in wildlife and countryside magazines, I am by no means alone. By now we had missed the Spring, missed the snowdrops, the celandines, the wild daffodils and now we would be missing the bluebells. These ‘openings’ didn’t bring the tourists back, of course, so the next announcement was that from May 18^th “three-quarters of the County’s footpaths will be open”, only those which pass through fields where livestock is actually grazing would remain closed.
May 18^th dawned a beautiful sunny day. We got up early, turned down all offers of a day’s supply teaching, and drove to Harting Hill with the intention of walking along the South Downs Way to Hooksway for lunch. Several other cars with excited walkers drew into the car park at the same time. We all put on our boots, marched across to the first stile, and there was a new red notice telling us to keep out because of the foot & mouth restrictions!!! It was unbelievable! We never saw the other walkers again after they all drove away, so ‘The Royal Oak’ lost all their custom and probably lots of others as well. We drove to Hooksway and tried to walk from there—a couple of tracks leading from the pub were open and we were able to walk about a mile and a half in a small triangle. On that beautiful day our favourite watering hole, which should have been packed, had half a dozen customers for lunch.
Such was the disgust by walkers, country landlords etc that the Government finally intervened. They told the County Councils that if there had been no cases of ‘foot & mouth’ within the county, then they had no right to close any public right of way any longer, and they all must be opened immediately! At last! So West Sussex County Council, still full of arrogance at the way they had “successfully kept foot & mouth out of the County” announced that all public rights of way would be open as from June 8^th. We were in Jersey on that date (and had been sprayed and scrubbed with disinfectant on arrival as if we were lepers, and our car searched for dairy products as if it was contraband!), but after we returned we tried to go walking on June 19^th and had no problem whatsoever. How wonderful to hike once more along our beloved South Downs and drink in those wonderful views!
Kent had just one case of ‘foot & mouth’ at the very beginning of the crisis—it was in the Isle of Sheppey and probably blew over from Essex where the first diseased sheep had been taken to an abattoir (from Northumberland, would you believe!) There had been no further cases in the South-East, so we reckoned we were pretty safe by June 20^th to continue our walk from Folkestone.

--- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- -- --- -- -- -- -

Now for our walk! We did not make a very early start, and by 3pm we still had not found a suitable campsite nor started our hike for the day! We began at the eastern wall of Folkestone Harbour, in exactly the same spot where we had finished last August. The tide was out and the sand looked firm, so we went down on the beach for the first hundred yards or so. We clambered over a few stones (being very careful about the green slime, bearing in mind what happened on Brighton Marina 2½ years ago!), through a tunnel under the esplanade and up some steps on to it from the landward side. The esplanade was only short and finished at a wall, so it was a stiff climb up some steps to walk along the grass above.
We could see that the cliff was all crumbly and that there had been lots of falls, some very recent by the look of it. We have been constantly hearing on the news about cliffs collapsing, occasionally with loss of life, due to the heavy rains of last Autumn and Winter. Sure enough, our way was soon barred by red tape and a ‘KEEP OUT – DANGER’ notice. The continuing path looked very overgrown so it must have happened some months ago. We diverted to the other side of a Martello Tower and soon picked up the path again.Further on, our map informed us that there was a site of a Roman Villa (they certainly knew how to pick the most scenic spots!) but nothing is left there now. We walked across a pleasant grassy glade between the bushes, then down some steps to the beach again. A walker coming the other way told us that, now the tide was out, we could get through to Samphire Hoe. However, the hour was already late and there was no way we could walk that far today. Along the bottom of the cliff was a concrete road, not an esplanade at all but merely functional and rather time-worn. We reckoned it was something to do with Second World War defences, however we made good use of it to walk on.
We could see camper-vans further along part way up the cliff, and intended to investigate that campsite when we reached it. The chalk cliffs here have suffered falls for many hundreds of years leaving an overgrown undulating landscape which is now quite safe. It is called ‘the Warren’, hardly surprising since we could number rabbits in their hundreds! The Caravan & Camping Club have landscaped part of it and turned it into a beautiful campsite. When we reached the track leading up to it, we called a halt to our walking and went to investigate.

That ended Walk No.21, we shall pick up Walk No.22 next time at the end of the track leading down from ‘the Warren’ campsite. We walked up the track, had a look round the campsite and liked what we saw. So Colin went back for the car which was parked near the Martello Tower we had passed less than a mile back, and we pitched our huge new tent overlooking the sea.

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.