September 14, 2022
Day 8: Folkestone to Canterbury
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This day began with serious no nonsense rain and wind. No matter, I still took out my camera for the seconds needed to record my favourite beach and water scene. It still looked pretty good, though closer to the image of a cold and grey English Channel.
Our stay had been not exactly in the Ship Inn and Pub as we had thought, but in the "Parade House", a building behind the Inn, facing the water, which was being run by the former owners of the Inn, recently retired.
The Parade House, which dates from the 1800's, had been gutted and completely redone. So now we had modern plumbing and lighting and wide screen TV in each of our two rooms on the top floor. For all that it was still rather cramped, and with narrow steep stairs. It is dawning on me that this is what England is about - narrow roads, small rooms, small shops. I am not saying there is anything inherently wrong with this, but as a North American I am more used to wide roads, big vistas, big rooms, and giant box stores.
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With the wind and rain whipping about, I had to keep my camera under wraps, so are few shots from the first half of the day. I did however risk this dramatic illustration of the tide being really far out:
We knew that to get to Dover we would have to climb onto the famous white cliffs. But our GPS, though waterproof, goes nuts when heavy raindrops fall on its screen. So we had to struggle along turning it repeatedly back on, as it kept deciding that we wanted it off.
We headed off along the seawall, sort of hoping to repeat the wonderful seawall ride that had materialized yesterday. But today this ended first in a pathway made of planks, and soon in a dead end. While riding the planks, an unleashed dog came and almost took Dodie down by getting tangled in her wheels. "Hey, watch out Doggie!" she exclaimed. This drew the ire of the dog walker, who tried to bawl us out for riding the planks. Only later did we see not a "no bikes" sign but rather a "dogs must be on leash" one. An incident like this is normally not worth mentioning, but this was the very first local that had an unkind word for us, after dozens and dozens of helpful and lovely people. Unfairly to those others, this one jerk began our day with a taint.
Negative thinking grew as we struggled once again through the traffic and convoluted track, just to earn the right to slog our way up onto the cliff. Our first objective was Dover, and then on to Canterbury.
The night before we had re-read the Anderson's account of cycling Dover to Canterbury. The Anderson's are the closest thing we know to expert touring cyclists, and we were appalled to read that our previous trials in fighting traffic, crossing streets to chase disappearing cyclable sidewalks, and convoluted tracks that prevented making any sort of rapid progress were all things shared by the Anderson's, and that they were making them as tired and crabby about it as us. And through this we recognized that before we would even follow in the Anderson's tracks to Canterbury this day, we first had to reach Dover.
The wind and rain on the cliffs was unrelenting, and we realized that we had not put on enough clothes for the conditions. But there was no shelter, no way to stop, and to pull on a sweater for under the rain gear. So we just carried on, getting more chilled by the minute.
Somewhere on the cliffs was a (closed) Battle of Britain memorial. new we had to at lest nominally stop for this, and I did struggle my camera out for a hurried shot of the airplanes on display. Here it is:
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Admittedly these plane are seventy-five years old, but trying to see past the pure effects of time, it did strike me that they seemed rather crude, as machines. I think I once also saw a V-2 rocket, and had the same reaction, to what seemed like galvanized plumbing pipes running on the outside. These iconic things may be more shining in our imaginations than they were in fact.
As we fought our way towards Dover, sourly opening and closing gates to keep cows from escaping areas where our path was running, the idea hatched that this was not much fun. Even after we did get a sweater on in a bus shelter, we really were not fond of the idea that rather than just making a typical dash for Canterbury, after Dover, we were going to be in for a zig zag, one track, or traffic fighting, slog. But wait, Dodie spotted a more direct route in her phone (Route 16 - the Cathedral to Coast). Maybe if we could get onto that we would have a chance!
I took out the camera, and chanced a rushed snap of the famous Dover castle. Churchill directed a lot of the Battle of Britain from here, we recalled. But you also have to climb the castle hill to get out of town!
Once in town, we were supposed looking for the TI, for some guidance on the shortest ride to Canterbury. But in our heart of hearts we knew what we really wanted - a train!
We found and went into the station, "just to see" what they could offer. They offered a train leaving in 15 minutes. We were into it!
On the train, a kindly conductor, who had done some cycling, pointed out some routes in the area that we might enjoy. One of these is the 10 km Crab and Winkle rail trail that runs north from Canterbury. The conductor generally felt that rather than contend with unpleasant areas or rides, one should teleport by train to where the going is more fun.
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When the train reached Canterbury, the rain had abated. We were also in a different region, one for instance where churches are made of flint.
Canterbury was originally surrounded by a wall. This can be seen in the curved perimeter streets, not to mention in bits of surviving wall.
We found our hotel, which was another one of those places with narrow steep stairs and dreary rooms. We are speculating on whether with a few more pounds we could move up to a better class of establishment. But maybe it would take a lot more pounds, since buildings here just seem to be naturally narrow, steep, and dreary.
We set out to look at the town, and did find a rather intriguing place, with the first pedestrian street we have encountered, and the general look of a set from Harry Potter.
'When we first came here in 2012, new to Europe and to cathedrals in general, we were shocked in Canterbury to find a gift shop, inside the holy walls. Well this did not stop us buying some Archbishop of Canterbury ballpoint pens (with his head in top, but at least not a bobble head - we need some dignity here!)
But today we found things have gone further, way further. The cathedral is now walled off, such that one can not see it at all. If you buy a 14 pound admission, you can go to a "viewing gallery" for a look at the darn thing. In principle we are not opposed to having tourists contribute to the upkeep of things like churches, but here they have changed it to Disneyland. The handout from the TI lists other Canterbury "Attractions" you can visit - like 9 pounds for St. Augustine's Abbey and 6 pounds for the Franciscan Gardens. It would take 75 pounds for a half decent tour of the churches and gardens in the town.
We retreated from the Abbey and went to the promising looking looking Patisserie on the corner, to possibly drown our sorrows about the fees in sugar. No such luck. An eclair, the standard measure of bakery costs and quality, similar to the eis becher, was 4.50 pounds each. That's over 5 euros. No sale! (I have read reports now that an eclair is actually 5 euros in Paris. If true, I will just have to go drown myself in the Seine!)
We flounced off to St. Thomas' Roman Catholic church, which is still free. We think the Catholics also have more flair, so I guess the Archbishop can keep his cathedral!
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Ok, so we also grabbed on pirate shot of the cathedral, through a crack in the defences. Here is what we got:
The town is also the home of the Canterbury Tales of Chaucer. We were forced to read this in first year English at University. I never really understood what it was all about, and the Chaucerian English put me off. here I am in Canterbury, taking a photo of the statue of the guy. Go figure.
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Epilog. At the end of a blog people often make a list of what worked and what didn't, in terms of equipment. Dodie wanted to see some of this mentioned now, since a few of these were sort of trying to kill her. First the quick release on her rear brake released. We suspect this "prank" happened on the plane. Next the quick release that folds the bike, released. We suspect that Dodie kicks it when mounting the bike, which here happens so many dozens of times per day. We repositioned it so one's foot can not reach it. And one of Dodie's walking sticks no longer snaps into position. One of our battery chargers is dead, and today in the rain my bike assist often failed. All that is in 8 days. What do we predict for 75 days?
Today's ride: 20 km (12 miles)
Total: 269 km (167 miles)
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