On the edge of England



Lomography at the train station

One of the things I have in common with Tom is travelling. We came up with the idea of finding places accessible by train from London for a day or a weekend. We wanted to be able to have time off London every two months or so. Wedding planning and money saving came a bit in the way.

One day of February, fed up with the stress of work, of finding a flat and packing, we decided to go to Dover. I think Dover came up while watching Brighton Rock. Those white cliffs do look nice, let's go. We booked our train ticket for the weekend. Our last weekend before moving house. And still half of the flat unpacked. Probably not the most sensible decision and timing. I hate being sensible. It bores me.

Dover white cliffs - Canon powershot A560

Sea resort - Canon powershot A560

We took the train on the Saturday morning. We arrived to a white-grey sky and cold wind. But we could already feel the relief of being away, having a break. As much as the excitement of discovering somewhere new. Dover is small enough to walk everywhere. But it is an absolute nightmare to cross the road. There are barriers everywhere. We directly headed for the shore - after a false start the wrong way. Pebbles. I'm not good at walking in pebbles. We were still giggling like kids taking a million pictures.

Our hotel was by the sea. Not the most charming hotel, but it was a safe choice, we knew the room would be clean and nice. And I love waking up and look at the sea. Next time we would probably search for a bed and breakfast. It seems there are quite a few around. We dropped our bags and headed out to the cliffs.

We climbed and climbed, found the "entrance" to the cliffs and followed the path. Wrong path. Well wrong path for me, that is the one closer to the edge. I know how James Stewart feels in Vertigo. I felt sick and dizzy and weak and like weeping. People getting closer to the edge made me feel like fainting. I never felt like that before. The path is something like 50cm wide and then the edge. No barriers, nothing. it seemed ridiculously dangerous to me. I don't know if "normal" people thought the same. But despite all that I was still amazed by the scenery. It is breathtaking (in part because of the freezing wind). The green of the grass, the white of the cliffs and the black of the sand (rocks?) of the small beaches. It was different to what I've seen. Since I couldn't stand up any longer, we headed back to safe land.

I still managed to take a picture. It looks less impressive...

We walked a bit more by the sea, looking at the ferry coming and going to France, before going back to the hotel for a rest. We are broke. Food places are a bit expensive as they get tourists all day long. All that was left was to walk to Asda in the night under heavy rain. Interesting experience. Of course with the wind our umbrella died. We hurried back to our hotel room to eat our dried pasta and watched a film in bed. Vertigo. Without realising the irony of the situation at the time.

Sunday was another day. There will be another post.