"Hello Pretty Ladies"

Sunday October 16^th

Today a grand adventure is planned…we are going to Dover!

Now in Dover there are a bunch of cool things to explore. First the ocean, then forts, castles, lighthouses, and of course the White Cliffs of Dover…and yes I explored them all.

It is 7:15am and I am ready to go…all bundled up, backpack packed, and a pop-tart in hand ready to head to Victoria Coach Station. Dan, Cobie and I made our way to Victoria Station...and thus began a most epic Sunday adventure. We were already lost in our own backyard, we had a very difficult time finding the coach station and ended up having to sprint for a good five minutes to find our bus just in the nic of time. Once on the bus a nap was in order due to our unusually early start on a Sunday morning. Awakening as the bus made its first stop in Canterbury, I saw the ancient walls throughout the city and decided that I need to visit there soon...Maybe this weekend. Nap time again and this time I woke up to an amazing view. The White Cliffs of Dover contrasting with the sparkling sea; my first sighting of the ocean in over a month and a half and it was amazing. The coach dropped us off at the station which was quite out of the way and not very close to town. As we began walking toward town I saw the boardwalk and pretty much started running toward it to find a way onto the beach. Once I found a way onto the beach were the customary sand was replaced with small, round and smooth pebbles; the water was clear with small waves. It was perfect! After spending some time on the beach wandering around exploring its shore and searching for sea glass...I found a few pieces to add to my collection. After we had spent a fair amount of time on the shore looking toward France we decided it was time to find food. After making our way into town we found a pub that had a deal on a full English breakfast, only £3.99, and as we were sitting there at 10:30am I witnessed some men sitting there on their third beer watching a futbol match. After breakfast we decided to follow this path up the hill looking for the Knights Templar Church ruins, and as we followed the winding path up a large hill we saw cows and came across an old fortress built into the hill. After finding a way into the old fortress Cobie and I decided we had suddenly been transported into the world of Monty Python; all we needed were some coconuts and the scenery would be perfect. As we explored further we found interesting trees, felt insignificantly small in comparison to the mammoth structure we wandering throughout, and found a fence blocking our way to further investigation of these fortifications.

We continued on searching for the church remains to hold our own church service which Dan had prepared for us, but to no avail we wandered for probably an hour and still could not locate it. Defeated we started making our way back to town to find refreshments and decided how to spend the rest of our day. We decided to split up since we wanted to explore different things. Dan went up the White Cliffs toward the lighthouse while Cobie and I decided to hike up to Dover Castle.

Dover Castle was quite incredible; the views were breathtaking from the top of the hill. We explored an ancient church, and went through the Great Tower and were able to walk on the top of the tower...yes the part of the sand castle that has the square ridges on top. I could see for miles, the mixture of hills, ocean and cliffs blended together to create perfection. After we had finished exploring Dover Castle...and when I say finished...well we didn’t see everything, not even close but we saw the thing that were most important to us...we headed to the White Cliffs again to meet Dan.

After intense hiking for about 45 minutes, our legs burning and my back killing me due to my backpack filled with the layers I had been wearing previously in the morning, we see Dan sitting on a lovely jutting edge of the cliffs. As we make our way toward him we are greeted with “Hello pretty ladies!!!” Dan had a picnic on the White Cliffs of Dover including a bottle of red wine. We decided to watch the sunset on the cliffs and as we were walking back we found a lovely view as the sun was dipping beneath the cliffs and Dan held our church service that he had prepared. We continued to head back down the cliffs and decided to follow what looked like an easier path, however, it turned out to be quite the opposite...we were crawling through the bushes and ended up sliding down a hill into a pile of garbage in the dusk. After retracing our steps and finding the original path we finally made our way back down to the coach station and too exhausted to walk back into town to find dinner we parked it in the station and waited...until finally our coach arrived and I was asleep within minutes.

A Sunday in Dover was amazing, hilarious, and slightly painful at times, but it was all worth it...we walked close to 30 miles up and down steep hills and explored nonstop from 9:30am to 7:30pm. The weather was also so of the best we have had since I have arrived in the UK.