We began a little lost at Folkstone hoping to find a tourist center with a trail map, but we couldn't find one, so we decided to walk in the direction of the cliffs because we were told the trail was just at the top. After a bit of following the highway, we found two other travelers who pointed out the correct turn. Eventually, we got to the top, and followed along the edge, and it was beautiful! The day was a little hazy, so we couldn't see France on the other side, unfortunately, but the Channel was a beautiful blue, and the cliffs were white! The trail ran through the edge of a little town, past a field of cows, a memorial, a sound wall?, some abandoned looking creepy stone shelters, and near farms. Towards the end, while still gorgeous to the right along the endless drop, the left led down to a highway, so that was not so scenic.
Anyways, the above picture is one of the nice ones, showing some of the white cliffs, a faint hint of the train tracks that ran along the Channel, and maybe a good perspective of how high we were?
This was the name of the trail we were following, North Downs Way, if you ever wanted to follow it. It is a nice hike--starts in Edgbury?, but we started in Folkestone because there was a convenient rail in that town, and it took us about 4 hours, at a pretty slow pace, taking lots of pictures.
At this point, we had more or less reached Dover, and at the bottom of the trail was a beach. The white rocks from the cliffs were smoothed over by the water, along the ground, and it looked really neat--stark white rocks against the green algae and scattered black rocks.
We meant to go to Dover Castle, but we arrived at about 3:30 pm, and the castle closed at 4 pm, and involved an uphill walk, and we were tired, so we decided to just look from afar. We ended walking along the cliffs on the other side of Dover, and by that time, it was evening, so this is a picture of the outline of Dover Castle.
Unfortunately, we thought we could find an alternate route back down from these cliffs, but that trail led from a fairly wide easy trail, into a windy passage through branches along the edge of the cliff, to a dead end that some people might have been able to climb back up to the trails at the top of the cliff. We didn't because it was REALLY SCARY, and returned the way we came, and found where that incline led to on the way back.
This picture shows the drop to were we were on that dead-end. The pipe and where I took the picture from was where the trail returned to, but as you can see, we were way below that at that bottom. All in all, we walked at least 8 hrs, left our dorms at 7 am, and we returned around 11 pm, so it was a full day. It was great to walk near water, and the white cliffs really were magnificent.
I'll end here with a reference to Arnold's magnificent poem about Dover's white cliffs. I loved this poem when I first read it in high school, and I'm really glad I finally got to see its subject.
- "...the cliffs of England stand,
- Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.
- Come to the window, sweet is the night-air!
- Only, from the long line of spray
- Where the sea meets the moon-blanch'd land,
- Listen! you hear the grating roar
- Of pebbles which the waves draw back, and fling,
- At their return, up the high strand,
- Begin, and cease, and then again begin,
- With tremulous cadence slow, and bring
- The eternal note of sadness in."
- -Matthew Arnold, excerpt from "Dover Beach"
