Travels Across the UK : Dover

Dover in its entirety has only been captured in my memory. I have not a single photo of it. Reason being, I visited Dover at the peak of March when the spring is still breaking the winter and the fog doesn’t budge. The fog was so thick that we ourselves couldn’t see 10 feet ahead of us. Clicking photos in such weather was absolute waste of time.

Dover is a small town in the county of Kent on the eastern coast of England. It is host to a major port and is one of the links of England to France. So much so that the sign boards on the streets of Dover are in both English and French. Despite the trade route, Dover is a small insignificant place. Everything is at a 20 min walking distance. The roads are narrow and the people are simple. Mind you, the city wasn’t laden with fog as you would have imagined but the main attraction of the place was. The cliffs! Dover has chalk cliffs all along its coastline. Formed out of millions of years of deposition of different kinds of sulphates and all the other kinds of chalks, these tall cliffs form a magnificent view. They are white from top to bottom, as if washed with white paint and stand tall next to a roaring ocean. Moreover, they are almost untrodden. There is not much tourism taking place there. Atleast during that time of the year there were very few tourists.

We arrived in Dover at around 11 in the morning. It was cold and windy. The sun peaked out of the clouds once in a while to my relief but most of the time I was terribly frozen inside my jacket. We went into a small, local looking café. It had three or at the most four tables some books on a side rack and a couch. It looked really cosy and warm. I asked for a chicken sandwich and a cup of tea. As we were sitting around and having our most deserved meal, I noticed that the owner of the shop knew almost every person who walked in through his door. He would greet them with a loud ‘Hello’ and some familiar conversation indicating that they knew each other well. What’s more, those who came in also greeted other customers in a similar manner. This seemed to be a really small town. Everyone knows everyone! So we asked the shop owner if he could suggest us the route to the cliffs or if there were any bus services that could take us up there. He gave us the numbers of the bus. Just as we had made up our mind to take the bus, a customer sitting next to our table broke in.

“You fellows look young and hardy to me. You shouldn’t take the bus. Climb it up!”

For the first time in the UK, it felt like home. I mean if I was in a small village in India or even in a city the older people would challenge us to climb it up wouldn’t they? So we said “Ofcourse. Can you suggest us a route to take?” The man graciously marked the route on our map and said ‘This is the shortest route you can get. Don’t take the bus. This route will be fun.’ We followed his instructions word by word. After walking for about 10 minutes we came to a place where a four lane road led straight into the port. On the left of the road was the beginning of the cliff. It stood tall covered by a wire gauge to prevent any erosion to cause any damage.  A small track went into the thicket of the vegetation growing under the cliff and bordering the main road. The path took us along the cliff for a few minutes before climbing up slowly on the white chalk. Rain was pouring down on the chalk and the earth beneath our legs was becoming loose. My sports shoes were slipping on the soft clay forming out of wet chalk. The sole of my shoe had lots of wet chalk stuck on it. We climbed up to one level where we could see a castle built on top of one of the cliffs. It was hardly visible through the ever increasing fog cover. It was getting colder as we climbed up and it was almost as if we were walking in the clouds very soon. I could tell why the Castle would have been built there. It’d be cold and foggy almost all of the year up there and no one would bother the king! A little further up the cliffs we could look down at the port and the sea. This view was breath-taking! The sea was right below us hitting the rock. The water was clear.

Dover’s port is a beauty on its own. There are very few ports that I have seen but this one is definitely special. It is spread into the sea for one and the port houses a semi-circular wall around itself as if marking its territory into the sea. This wall has an opening in the middle for the ships to sail into the port. This port was the first of its kind that I had seen.

So we climbed on and after an hour of climbing we came to the highest point of the cliff. I was fully soaked by then and the cold was killing me. It was definitely below zero degrees on that day. Rain with sub-zero temperature can be torturous. To my relief, we found a café. Yes, on top of the cliff, there’s a café with see-through glass walls. I went in to its warmth and ordered some hot caffeine. We sat there for a long time, letting our bodies warm up and recover from the state of numbness. The people in the café told us that there’s a light house at a distance of about two miles from the café. To walk towards the light house meant walking for another half an hour in that cold and rain. I got goose bumps even by the idea of it. But my friend insisted that we have come so far and that we shouldn’t miss the opportunity. So we stepped into the clouds once more. At one point there came a place where we had to walk on a very narrow edge of cliff, with the chalk soaking wet in rain and it was precariously slippery. To make matters worse, there were about four groups trying to cross it in both directions at once. If anyone had slipped they would have fallen right into the ocean 300 feet below. We managed to cross it unharmed. We walked for a long wet time until it got unbearably cold. We no longer could see any people around us. The place looked deserted and full of clouds. Before we could get frozen to death, I suggested we return to base. That’s when our phones buzzed with some range which we did not have all along. When we checked the phone we realised that we had gone into a roaming zone to a French network! Wow! We were so close yet so far from France. Satisfied with our discovery we returned to base without seeing the light house.

When we spoke to the café owner again, we discovered that during summer one can actually see France across the ocean from that point where we had received a French cell service. What an experience that would be! The weather got worse into the evening. It rained and the wind got wilder and colder. The bus that we were supposed to take to go back was cancelled due to weather conditions. We had to wait another two hours in that cold. All cafes and restaurants closed down at 7pm and we sat out on a bench shivering to death. Finally the next bus arrived and we got on. The rest of the journey is a dreadfully cold story. Even so, Dover was an extraordinary experience of the English Winters. Truly Unforgettable!