Day 12: Stage 10: Folkestone (Horley): 24 kms, Sun, 32°

Walking The Chalk!

A late post after a very long day! 

Last night after dinner we had just got back into our overheated top floor room in a B&B when I noticed a huge seagull sitting just outside our partly opened tiny window. I looked closer and realized he had my orange first aid dry bag and he was trying to peck it open with his beak! He wasn’t letting go easily and I finally had to use my walking stick to wack him before he would give it up and leave. Big tough seagulls in Dover! The locals hate them. 

We had a miserable night in our extremely hot attic room with just a tiny window and a very ineffectual and overwhelmed fan. Annemarie woke me up just before 7 and told me we should walk the White Cliffs of Dover. Immediately! All geared up we stepped out into the cool morning air and the first lungfuls were wonderful! We chatted with a couple of local fellows who directed us towards the stairs leading up to the cliffs.

 For those a bit younger or history challenged, Vera Lynn was a singer during WWII who was the voice that helped give hope to a country on the verge of invasion. They’ve appropriately named the street leading to the cliffs after her. 

Dover harbour where many of the British Expeditionary Forces were taken after the evacuations from Dunkirk across the channel. We found memorials to this on the promenade. Lots of early WWII history happened in this area. 

We found ourselves at the top of the cliffs quite quickly. The car park was essentially empty and we had most of the trails pretty much to ourselves. The views were stunning!

I suppose it’s safe to say that a visit to this place has always been on my informal bucket list since I was a child. I’ve seen the cliffs from the ferry a couple of times, but to walk them is very special.  

Most of the time you can get pretty much as near to the edge of the cliffs as you wish to be. I guess the closer you get the better your Instagram picture! That wasn’t happening for us this morning.





The trail we were following along the Clifftops follows the relatively new England coast path which follows England’s entire coastline. I believe my buddy Rob was walking a part of this path SW of Bristol back in May/June.





We walked about 5 km along the cliffs until we reached the famous lighthouse. There we split a Cliff Bar for an early breakfast snack, appropriately named? We couldn’t wait to get out of our little furnace room and left town without breakfast!



We wandered back along the cliffs and into Dover in search of breakfast. We’d walked about 11 km by then and we were getting hungry.

We almost tripped over the large medallion that had been placed on the Dover boardwalk identifying the end of the North Downs Way. Hurray! 



It was getting pretty toasty by the time we finally found a place for Sunday breakfast. A small English breakfast was ordered at the Happy Chef, a small friendly restaurant. Good food, great tea! 

After breakfast we set off down along the side of a busy highway in search of the trail that will lead us out to the cliffs and headlands as we walked westward towards Folkstone. We eventually found the right path and enjoyed a very hot, vigorous, but extremely beautiful walk.

Those headlands put us through our paces!



At some point Annemarie ran out of water and we still had quite a ways to go. Of course the camino provides, and we just happen to be opposite some trailer homes with stunning views all over the English Channel. I called out to the owners of one who were sitting inside and they were tremendous. Immediately came outside and took Annemarie’s water bladder and refilled it with nice cold water. This was super important as it was extremely hot today. Britain is again suffering through another heat wave.

Looking ahead towards Folkstone.

The small rest stop that I had hoped to stop at was unfortunately closed. We were told the local neighbourhood was pretty upset about the whole thing, but I think we were more upset because we were beginning to dream of an ice cold Coca-Cola! We plodded on. 

And for the second time the day the Camino provided. We came across the British Memorial to the Battle of Britain. I thought it was extremely well done. If you look closely behind the seated pilot you’ll see that the supporting building is constructed in the shape of a spitfire, the main British fighter that essentially stopped the Nazis in their tracks before they could land on British soil. Down and to the right of the building is a memorial wall with all the names of the young pilots who lost their lives.

This is only a small section of that wall, and there are the names of pilots from all over the commonwealth, including Canada.

If you go on Google maps and find this location you will see that the three white propeller props are very distinctive and can be seen from a great distance above earth’s surface.

Well not nearly as important but to us pretty important there was a cafeteria on the second floor and they had Coca-Cola! I kind ladies also fill my water bladder almost to bursting! I too had just run out of water. There was much rejoicing!



Having sat in a small cafeteria, did I mention the air-conditioning, for over 40 minutes we set off again into the heat of the day knowing that we were within 3 to 4 km of our destination. With the help of Google Maps we were directed along the oddest route to Folkstone Central train station. There we activated our prepaid tickets and over the next 2 1/2 hours and two train changes, we found our way to where we are tonight on the top floor of an extremely hot B&B that provides no breakfast, and for that matter no fans. The mind boggles. A heat wave all summer and all rooms don’t have a fan. No doubt, it’s going to be a very long night.

That said, we found a really good Turkish restaurant for our last dinner out in Britain. There I found Efes beer! The last time I had one of those was in 2009 while travelling with our daughter Erin in Turkey. Nice!

Tomorrow morning we will rearrange our packs in preparation for an afternoon flight from Gatwick airport to Basel, Switzerland. From there we will take several trains that will eventually get us to Besançon, France late tomorrow evening. While standing on the Dover cliffs I will admit to a few pangs that we are not catching the ferry across to Calais to continue the Via Frencigena there. However, as I stated in my earlier post I’m not very interested in walking across north eastern France. The trail is cobble together which makes for quite poor walking with long stages often across flat areas. A few moments of those sorts of reflections and I was ok with starting further southeast. As such, Besançon it is! From there we will get into the Jarl Mountains very quickly and the walking will be considerably more interesting, at least for this walker.

Next contact will be from France where we have air conditioning in our hotel! I’m so excited!! We are looking forward to returning to French cuisine, not to mention their wines and the beauty of the countryside. See you there!