Deal
front
White
Cliffs of
Approaching
St Margarets at Cliffe
|
From
Deal station the main street led down to the front and Deal Castle.
A tarmac path and cycleway continued above
the shingle beach. The shingle flora
was dominated by red valerian and clumps of evergreen oak, although a line of
sea kale survived along the ridge nearest the sea where no other plants would
grow. We only saw a couple of plants
of yellow horned poppy south past Walmer, where there was another castle. South of Walmer a line of houses abuts the
shingle shore and here were abundant alien plants like blue globe-thistle and
paths from each house, using the shingle as a kind of front garden – it was very
colourful with flowers. At the end of
the houses the path along the shingle stopped and there was a triangular
strip of grassland on shingle signed as a nature reserve. Here again almost all the plants were
aliens, but they included three stonecrops – biting, white and rock;
star-of-Bethlehem; and hairy garlic just opening. Then the White Cliffs of Dover started and
we had to walk up beside the road. The
cliff-top grassland was full of chalk plants – with especially beautiful
displays of bright pink sainfoin and bright yellow horseshoe vetch
contrasting with blue common milkwort and white Nottingham
catchfly. There was also kidney vetch
and carline thistle. (We tried walking
along the bottom of the cliffs, as there was a permissive path where there
had once been a MoD rifle range, but there was no exit at the southern end
and we had to return. Nevertheless, it was a good chance to see the tall
white chalk cliffs from below, with lots of wild cabbage and rock samphire,
while fulmar, jackdaw, feral pigeon and house martin nested in the crevices.)
The wild cabbage was also common all
over the cliff-top grassland and later there were large patches of gladdon
(stinking iris). After passing a war
memorial we descended into the gap occupied by St Margaret’s at Cliffe, with
a lot of cars visiting the little harbour. We had to continue up the winding road past
the Pines organic garden and steeply up to the cliff top again at South
Foreland. Here a group of houses
blocked the way and we had to walk round them, but could access the cliffs
again by a path beside the lighthouse, where there were a lot of visitors. We used the chance of one of the seats here
in the shelter of the building to have our lunch out of the cold wind. The cliff just past here had a good amount
of rock-rose as well as the other plants. While we could have walked inland on the
level when we got to the gap at Langdon Hole we descended to the bottom and
then up the very steep path on the other side. There were lots of lackey moth caterpillars
attacking the shrubs here. Quite a few
whitethroats were singing on the tops of bushes. We were now above the ferry port at Dover, hearing the
loudspeaker announcements loud and clear while still enjoying a wealth of
chalk grassland flowers. We walked at
an intermediate height close to the chalk cliff, along a wide platform with
rock above and below. This was even
more flowery and we had our first orchids, early spider and common spotted. Among the common blues and occasional speckled
wood and orange-tip we caught a glimpse of a dingy skipper. The path was well marked but eventually got
difficult through thick scrub and we returned to a side path to a higher
level, along which there were lots of early spider orchid. We unfortunately had to descend from this
scenic bit of countryside with flowers and views of chalk cliffs against blue
sea, to the edge of the huge harbour, where major ferries were coming in
continually and roads were busy with heavy traffic. We walked briefly by the harbour to where
the road rose towards Dover Priory station. We were back in Deal in less than 20
minutes! We drove back to our hotel –
Wallet’s Court, West Cliffe, just outside St
Margaret’s at Cliffe.
|
Wild
cabbage on cliffs
Dingy
skipper
Early
spider orchid
|
Sainfoin
 |
Horseshoe
vetch
Common
spotted orchid
|
No comments:
Post a Comment