Day 23: Hastings to Burmarsh, UK: A Fine Kettle of Fish

June 11, 2012

We woke up to the same sound on the tent as when we went to sleep: rain. This time, though, we are ready for it. We put on our full rain gear, even the Goretex socks. Thanks to our improved tent for this year, we can take it down from the inside out.

In the washroom is this sign, clearly a lame attempt at humour:

Tricky wording. Driest part or not, we're drowning down here.

It turned out we were not quite at the top of Hastings, and the road continued steeply upwards for a while.

Dodie pushes up a further steep hill, and into the void.

Following the climb, naturally, was the descent. It was 15% for a long distance and then eased to 12%. At the bottom we found ourselves in a world of sheep. As you will see, sheep filled our day. That is because we had entered the Romney Marsh area, and sheep fill the Romney Marsh.

This is not exactly the marsh lands. It's called Pett Level

We did stop to stock up on food. While of course we would only buy healthful items, I could not help noting that here 2L of Coke costs about $3.65 Canadian. That price at home would be $1.00 to $1.50!

A quick food stop at the Coop Food Store. You would need to mortgage your bike to buy Coke.

We carried on deeper into the marsh and found.. more sheep.

We were having a reasonable time of following the NCN 2, and faithfully followed it along a muddy track.

At the end of the track - no more signs! We cast about and found the remnants of what looked like a broken off one. From this we inferred we should go one certain way. But two locals who we consulted insisted on a different way. We followed their advice, and were not to see NCN 2 for quite some time! Instead we followed our own lights and headed from the outskirts of Rye down into Rye Harbour. (p.s. As we slogged through the rain we just wanted to get on with it. Consequently we did not go into the fabulous ancient town of Rye. Similarly, yesterday we did not go to the fabulous ancient town of Battle. We will have to come back another year and check them out!).

The next place on our cue sheet was Camber. It's across a river outlet from Rye Harbour, no bridge. We consulted a construction worker, Jack, a very sweet boy, who suggested we might be able to cross to Camber if the tide was right. This sounded like an adventure, so we headed down a further mile, to where two other workers poured cold water on our ambitions.

You would have to swim to Camber, said these construction workers. One of their mates, Jack, thought we might have a chance to cross, depending on the tide.

The workers sent us all the way back to Rye, to look for "The Kettle of Fish" in a roundabout and Skinner's Garage in a second one.

The workers sent is all the way back to Rye, past the Kettle of Fish

We found these (as well as some darn NCN 2 signs) and made our way to Camber. We arrived in Camber having wasted about two hours. Thanks Sustrans!

Then, they said, look for Skinners Garage. Got it!

Our friend in Montreal, Martin, warned us off the jellied eels. It wasn't really necessary!

We carried on in the marsh area, finding... more sheep.

The farmer says he runs four and a half thousand! We closed the gate to this pasture, but he said the sheep are too tame to care if the gate is open or closed.

These are not Shaun sheep, who are Suffolks. Rather these are Romneys, indigenous to the Marsh here, crossed with Texeal.

We encounter only our third touring cyclist in England. Steve is from Yorkshire and is circling the UK coastline (about 5000 miles) ten days at a time. He then trains back home and sets out at his next vacation time.

Many towns ago we had briefly encountered a German tourer - Wolfgang. Wolfgang now turned up on the path! How had the Grampies got ahead of him? Sad story - his wallet had been stolen as he slept on the beach. But good news, people had found it, contacted him through his business card in the wallet, driven to pick him up, and reunited him and the wallet. (Only the cash was missing.)

We had a chance to look at Wolfgang's bike - many interesting German quality parts. Unfortunately no time to describe it more fully now - maybe later!

A convention forms on the NCN 2 as Wolfgang from Stuttgart suddenly cycles up.

We now ran into the first of a series of churches we were to investigate this afternoon. It started when we just stopped in front of All Saints in Lydd. As we stood there, Joe, who was nearby suggested we look inside. He is very proud of the church, and gave us a tour. We also picked up a pamphlet inside called The Mediaeval Churches of Romney Marsh, and found details of about 15 churches in the towns all around. We ended up seeing four of them, plus one ruins from a distance.

We are soon to be thrown out of the pub where I am writing this, so I will rely on the captions to tell some of the story. Two highlights: The pink pews were painted for a Walt DDisney movie, and we found the grave of E. Nesbit.

Joe spotted us outside and went to get the key

We found her grave marker in the church yard. It had been carved by her second husband

The laneways in the Marsh are lovely, but very narrow

Still, doesn't this make you want to get out and cycle!

Burmarsh is not only the site of one of the churches and our home for the night, Burmarsh is one of the earliest of the marsh settlements. It is noted in the Doomsdaybook from 1086.

Our spot in the Orchard caravan park in Burmarsh

We even got the gizmo to connect to the caravan power

We cycled back into town to the Shepherd and Crook, Burmarsh's All Saints in the background. The pub dates from the 14th century, the church is older!

The 14th century pub, our blogging office!

Today's ride: 69 km (43 miles)
Total: 743 km (461 miles)

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