Kent: Dover to Hythe 31/5/2010**

 

Early spider orchid   N ottingham catchfly

From Dover station, we walked down to the docks, where we were faced with a confusing tangle of trunk roads, busy with ferry traffic.  There was no provision for pedestrians to get through this mess, but we managed to find some back streets that led us to a pavement beside the A20 going west.  Eventually there was a path off the main road, although still close to it, and we were joined by the Saxon Shore Way, which had forsaken the coast to meander through the town.  The noise of the traffic was thunderous with heavy lorries trying to go uphill.  Although we soon climbed Shakespeare Cliff and the cliff-top path went a little further from the road, the noise was ever-present so we never got the sort of peace we had yesterday the other side of Dover.  The same flora as yesterday was present on the chalk, but much less, and there was much more rank grass and scrub with escapes like garden tulip.  Again we saw a few early spider orchids although not the late spider orchid we had particularly hoped for – we may well have been too early.  There was more rockrose and kidney vetch.  Particularly impressive, carpeting the cliff-edge slopes, were the Nottingham catchflies.  By the cliff-edge, too, swifts kept sweeping close by our heads as if playing “dare”.  We always marvel at their speed and manoeuvrability.  There was a large presence of the pill woodlouse, often in aggregations of a dozen or so.  Below us was a shore platform, Samphire Hoe Country Park, but the only access is by road through a tunnel.  The “Samphire” in the name is presumably from rock samphire, occasionally seen on the cliffs.  Around Capel-le-Ferne housing started to occupy the landward side, the vegetation became more rank and the path more interrupted by private properties, so we had to climb almost to the road.  This gave us a chance to have a coffee at a little café with a view towards Folkestone.  After the Battle of Britain Memorial was just a succession of building sites and spoilt paths.  The one down to Folkestone was unsigned, so we had to search hard for it.  It was steep and came into a small road on the eastern edge of the town beside a Martello tower.  We had our lunch on a seat overlooking a mown grass area above the cliff, now much lower, before we began walking through town.  We went seaward of the next Martello tower, although the path was difficult because of landslips, and west to the harbour.  The harbour was dominated by seafood stalls and looked “Dickensian” except that the scene was dominated by a large hotel called the “Grand Burstin”.  The front eventually became a concrete sea-wall that goes amazingly straight for 3.5 miles all the way to the end of Hythe.  This was boring, with a bare shingle beach to our left, relieved occasionally by sea kale flowering, a plant that seems to survive where no other vegetation exists.  Approaching Hythe it was abundant all along the shingle sheltering under the sea-wall, and it grew in some people’s gardens.  There was very little yellow horned-poppy.  Hythe merged into Sandgate where we passed the busy Ship Inn where we would stay the next night.  At Seabrook the houses were further landward across some rough grass and the Royal Military Canal, the green space eventually widening into a golf course owned by the Imperial Hotel at the entrance to Hythe.  At the end of the sea-wall we took the road north to the “Green”, a playing-field-like space, which we crossed to Hythe railway station. Here was a bus-stop for the 101 bus to Dover. Folkestone Harbour & Grand Burstin Hotel