Wallflowers
Chalk
and flint beach
 |
We
parked in Birchington at the bottom of Beach Avenue and immediately joined the
coastal path. We were on the usual
concrete sea-wall and, as the tide was high, only occasionally visited the
beaches, where there was some sand and a few shells, more than any previous
day so far this trip. There was less
shingle than yesterday, but what there was still supported a little sea kale.
Westgate-on-Sea, followed by Westbrook,
all merged into Margate,
but we were mostly walking below quite tall chalk cliffs where many fulmars
nested, sailing past on their stiff narrow wings. At Westbrook Bay
was the washed up damaged carcase of a harbour porpoise. Its truncated head was distinct from the
more beaked one of a dolphin. We
entered the centre of Margate
along the road, past Dreamland and the harbour, and continued the sea-wall
until just before Foreness Point, which was impassable at shore level. We had to take the path up the cliff and
across the end of a golf course, following a tarmac path all the way to Botany Bay. Rain
kept all the butterflies away, but snails, especially garden snails, were
having a fine time. A grassy space
above the cliff had a single shelter with benches, where we could eat lunch
in the dry, watched by a herring gull hoping for scraps. This was close to the flint-built low tower
at White Ness where we turned from east to south, a major change in direction.
The path descended directly to the
friendly Captain Digby Inn, where we stopped for coffee and Maltesers to
raise our dampened spirits. From here
the rain eased, although it remained dull. The cliffs were now bright with purple, pink
and white hoary stocks, and yellow or orange wallflowers. The huge faux-castle at Kingslake blocked
access to the coast and we could not descend to the beach until the next bay
at North Foreland. The official
coastal path rose again after this to follow a road some way inland, but by
now the tide was just beginning to go out and we managed, with a little
difficulty (and one wet foot) to negotiate the concrete to get on the beach
beyond, where there was sand, but many fallen blocks and pebbles of chalk and
huge flints. The way improved as we
advanced below Broadstairs and on to the broader beach there, from which we
rejoined the concrete sea-wall all the way to Ramsgate. Below Memorial Park there was a small space
of cliff that had been concreted over to make a rock-garden that spread down
the cliff, presumably with the idea that this would not weather away as the
chalk would. In many places were huge
ugly concrete buttresses preventing loss of the cliffs. At one point there were strange square holes
in the chalk cliff, descending regularly in a line, which we thought were
probably air-ducts to a tunnel in the cliff, but the last and lowest one was
bricked up to prevent use. Just before
the centre of Ramsgate was an area being developed as a “sea garden” with
mainly native plants and a pattern of stones in a spiral, but it was
overgrown and needed more management; a notice there asked for volunteers to
help this work. We arrived in Ramsgate
too late to witness the flotilla of small boats which left the harbour for France that morning to commemorate the evacuation
of Dunkirk 70
years ago. We rounded the inside of
the large busy Royal
Harbour and marina and
took the road nearest the front up the hill to where Nelson Crescent turned back. Here was our hotel for the next two nights,
Royal Harbour Hotel. We proceeded
through the centre of town and beyond to get to the railway station, a mile
from the front. We later walked to Age
& Sons restaurant off Harbour
Street, near the northern end of the harbour.
|
No comments:
Post a Comment