Dover -14th March 2008

Friday 14th March 2008

We decided to celebrate Easter early before my fourth chemo session so travelled to Kent for the weekend to do family visits.

On Friday it was dry when we got up so despite the forecast rain we decided to go for a walk. Dad drove us to Dover and we parked by the NT visitor centre. We then walked along the cliffs to St Margaret's bay. It was quite slippery in places, dad slid down a bank at one time (luckily nowhere near the edge of the cliff) and we had to haul him up and find another route round.

The sun came out and it was lovely looking at the cliffs and the ferries arriving from France. The SeaFrance strike meant that several of the ferry bays were empty which was unusual but there were loads of lorries queued up waiting for crossings.

At St Margaret's we stopped at the Coastguard for a drink and then walked back along the same route. The gorse was in flower and there were lots of rabbits about.

At the South Foreland lighthouse there was a sign out showing it was open, for the first time this year, so we went in and had a quided tour. Several landmarks were pointed out from the top including the WWII radar staions (originally 4 now only 3), the house where Ian Fleming wrote the first 007 book -apparently the local bus number was 007! and finally the house overlooking the cliff owned by an American who insisted on flying the Stars and Stripes when in residense so that the first thing travellers saw when arriving at Dover was an American flag! The lighthouse was clockwork powered and we got to wind it up so that the top was turning -great fun. We continued the walk back to the visitor centre and had a cup of tea before driving home. A really nice day and our first real walk for ages! (10km walked).