South East England, and France plus a bit of B and NL

[Charlie]

I thought I would put all the pictures here so as not to clog up the system for those not wishing to view them as there will be a lot. I am going to do it in 2 further messages - part 1 is England, and part 2 is the continental Europe bit.

[Charlie]

Note: These images have been resized, but are still slightly too wide to be displayed, so the right-hand edge (about an inch) has been cut off by the Gestalt software. If it really does affect your viewing (or I feel it is absolutely vital to a particular picture) I will manually adjust the size again so it all fits (the pic will be slightly smaller on screen), but this is an absolute ******** to do manually.

View from the campsite:



The walk (or Death March):
At the start of the walk in Deal it became apparent that it the sea was quite rough with the wind blowing in from the east into the shore. This part of the sea is arguably more of the North Sea than it is of the English channel as it is where the countries on either side of the channel diverge rapidly.



The first leg of the journey was the easy (if somewhat arduous and in some ways a little boring being battered as I was by the strong winds wearing only shorts and a t-shirt as clothing. Yes I had other clothes in my backpack, but I get too hot otherwise and it was warm in the sun) as it was flat and near enough a straight line due south until the cliffs started near enough right on the corner of the peninsular. I mentioned it was breezy and a few pictures document this quite well, showing the extent of the waves. These were taken at the end of the flat bit.


This bluebell looked a lot bluer irl, found as I started my ascent up the cliff. NB: Whilst I remember it is worthwhile to note that you will not have much chance seeing bluebirds at the white cliffs as they are not native to the UK.

Looking back from a little way up - the last pictures of the sea were taken from where the last group of buildings were in the distance.


A few more shots from the first cliffs (I am not going to mention again if they were looking back or not as you can work it out for yourselves - the sea was on my left as I walked around the coast so if it on the right it is a photograph from behind me)




The Monument of the Dover Patrol which is located on what I would consider the corner of the country, as the coast turns from heading south to heading west. From here on it is more what I would call the Channel, and as you may notice later the sea was remarkably a lot calmer.



Having passed the monument I headed down into St Margaret's and just to the right of the cliff in the next picture (nice atmospheric touch by the camera, caused by the lighting and angle in relation to the sun) there an inlet and there is a pub/restaurant there next to the sea. To get down to there you go along a road which passes through a gap in what was the defences built and maintained between 1798 and 1903 to deal with the Napoleonic threat as it was considered one of the 5 most likely landing places for his fleet. Anyway, after an hour idled away whilst I lunched (in the self-proclaimed closest pub in Britain to France) it was back to the task...


Yes - I was this close to the edge at times. A lot of it is open access land and so you are free to go where you like, and a lot of the formed paths lead close to the edge.


Getting towards Dover, and the finish line I was slowed down by talking to an American lady and had a drink with her as she waited for her fellow traveller who had walked on ahead to the lighthouse and back (about 2.25 miles round trip). The lighthouse in question was this one, and the meeting place was just after this chalk cliff face which I could photograph as I was on a ledge (about 7ft wide) part-way up. Sorry about the slight blurriness in the middle of the penultimate pic, but that was one of the finger-print on lens affected ones, but still a nice snap regardless. (Pic 2 has the Port of Dover in the background)





Finally, with the Port of Dover reached and passed it was a case of walking into the town, having dinner then getting the train back to Folkestone and driving back to camp for the trip to Europe the next morning

[Aspen]

These are amazing pictures, but I'm sure you already knew that.

[Charlie]

These are amazing pictures, but I'm sure you already knew that.

It does help having about 200 photos from the journey to pick them from so I can weed out the ones I am not happy with (to some extent).

[Sophist]

Did I miss France?

[Charlie]

Firstly the train to France....



Then some from Paris that afternoon/evening. Not much before then as I was driving and from just south of Bologne to about 5mins from coming off the motorway it was raining.


Notre Dame (2nd pic is a close up of the centre arch):


A cafe on the Ile St Louis:





The Champs-Elysées and Arc de Triomphe



The Scaffolding




That was pretty much it in my stay in Paris, especially as by the end I could barely walk (due to the inside of the top of my left leg being raw from where the seam of my shorts had been rubbing over the past 2 days). The next day was one of travelling - and a lot of it!

Firstly the château in Chantilly near where I was camping, and the archway over the road nearby, which was attached to a theatre (used for horse shows):






Next a light-hearted moment. It appears asparagus is one of the main crops in Northern France at this time of year, so you get numerous roadside signs and places selling it directly. However, the French word for asparagus does not translate too kindly for some...



And finally from France a more serious picture. Back on the north coast near the Belgian border is the other main port which crosses the channel, Dunkerque. Of course it has historical significance during the wars and so it is this picture which sums up part of it - part of a graveyard which contains the bodies of nearly 1600 Frenchmen killed in WWI (not WWII for which the town is more synonymous with).


On a similar theme the next place I visited was about half an hour south-east of Dunkerque, the Belgian town of Iepers, known more to the English by its French name of Ypres. Again there were small graveyards dotted around the town and surrounding area, containing mainly British soldiers from WWI, but these pictures were from the square in the centre.



Not that it really proves much but the next photo was taken from Holland, back across the Belgian border:



And to end the trip I stopped of the motorway in Belgium at the town of Niewpoort - about 40 mins from Calais (any guesses what the English translation of Niewpoort would be? ) - for dinner as I drove back to the Eurotunnel terminal. It was a friendly, quaint place and I will end with a few pictures of the square, including the place where I had a marvellous dinner (Flemish stew), ending with the final picture I took on my journey before returning home (via a final night stay at the campsite in Folkestone).

[goddessoflubbock]

The pics were spectacular! You did get awfully close to the edge in the one shot - from time to time pieces of those cliffs do wear away.

It was nice to get a particular point of view - the travel shows always zip around so fast, trying to show so many things in a half hour or hour that you don't get a feel for things.

Aside from the soreness I hope the trip was great for you.

[Sophist]

Oh la la la la... I wish I were there...

[Charlie]

You did get awfully close to the edge in the one shot - from time to time pieces of those cliffs do wear away.

To be honest I never got closer than a yard to the edge, and most of the time it was at least 2 - I was scared to get any closer. There is just a touch of zoom on the picture to make it seem like I was on the extreme.

These cliffs are wearing away slowly by the tides making the channel grow slightly every year (or day or any unit of time )

Glad some of you like the pics....

I just noticed one of the pictures was wrong - the Dunkerque one was a repeat of the Arc de Triomphe. The correct picture is here (and I will change the other one as well)....

[Sophist]

I thought Dunkerque looked a lot like the Arc...

But, yeah, those pictures were awesome.

[adhocisadirtyword]

Beautiful pictures, Charlie!!

[Aspen]

Amazing pictures.

Sorry about your leg.

[Charlie]

Thanks again folks....