A Day Hiking the White Cliffs of Dover

A day in Dover Hiking along the White Cliffs - 

We are still adjusting to the time change and I did get some extra sleep with the help of an Ambien. 

We were up at 0600 and started our preparation for the day. We had pastries and coffee in the room. Our day bags were packed for hiking the White Cliffs. The skies are overcast and it may rain, and it has been lightly spitting.  

Our plan, given the advice we received from the info center, was to take a bus to St. Margret and hike back. When we arrived at the bus stop the schedule indicated there would not be a bus for 45 minutes so we reverted to Plan B and started our hike from Dover. 

We made our way to the cliff road and located the start of the White Cliffs walking trail. The first part of this route is uphill to the top of the Cliffs. We first passed the Castle as we had great views of the Dover Harbor. 

All most to the top

After reaching the top of the cliffs we soon came upon the visitors center and were there well before it opened. Our plan was to visit the Fan Bay Deep Shelter and understood we needed to purchase tour tickets at the Visitor Center. Luckily we chatted with a person from the Visitor Center as he was placing signs and learned we could pay cash at the Shelter. 

With this new information, we downloaded some nearby Geocaches, located two as we headed out on the trail towards the Shelter. 

The trail is very well maintained and there are several trails heading hither and yon, as well as up and down. After a few miles, we arrived at the Fan Bay Deep Shelter  about 30 minutes before the first tour. 

These ponies were grazing along the trail 

The Trail is well marked 

The Tour lasted about 1 hour and was very informative and well done. 

The Fan Bay Deep Shelter is a sub-terrain barracks which was built in 100 days during WWII. Here the troops who manned the gun emplacements were housed during their on duty time. 

The Shelter is located 23 meters below the surface and there are 125 steps from the surface  to the housing area. The shelter was dug in from the cliffside by Welsh miners who had the skills and they found the digging into the chalk cliffs rather easy, thus the progress was fast. 

The Shelter housed 145 to 158 men with a compliment of 4-6 officers.  The walls were dripping with condensation and one can only imagine what the conditions would have been like during the war with 150 men living 24/7 and smoking in these damp quarters. We noted the condensation to this day as drops formed on the ceiling and walls. 

There were areas for a  medical area where the walls and ceiling were covered with cork to eliminate the condensation. The officers had a separate area as quarters. 

One pre WWII feature were two Sound Mirrors.  These are concave dishes placed facing the channel where a trained individual could listen from these posts and hear incoming aircraft. These were rather effective till the advent of RADAR. 

Sounds Mirror

Inside one can find a lot of graffiti from WWII on to the present day. One bit is confirmed as the writer of the graffiti inscribed his service number. 

We climbed up the stairs to return to the surface. 

We then continued our hike to the South Foreland Lighthouse which was built in 1843. One very interesting fact is Marconi made the first ship to shore transmission to this lighthouse. The lighthouse was also the location for the first international transmission as from there, France was contacted. 

  

From the lighthouse we found a Geocache, this one was named Jet Man. This is the location of the landing spot of the first solo manned jet rocket journey across the channel. 

The English Channel is the busiest sea way on the world with 400 or more ships transiting it daily. 

After the Geocache, we made our way into St. Margaret’s Bay and found the bus stop. We were early and had a great conversation with a local gentleman all about travel and various journeys. 

We bussed back to Dover after hiking about 8 miles and we felt rather peckish. We dropped our packs and headed to the cellar pub for some food. I had a bacon butty and Lynn had fish and chips, all was great. I enjoyed a pint of a local cider called Lunatickel which was very very nice. Perfect for ending along day hiking.  

We stopped at the RSPCA Thrift Store and found an indestructible (maybe) dog chew toy for the Boys.

We will now go shopping for a few sundries and breakfast.  It was a most enjoyable day. Dover has a lot to offer, and we are planning tomorrows agenda.