15th October 2010 – Dover to Brighton, England

I worked out what time we had to leave this morning giving us an hour’s leeway to catch our ferry. We were half an hour late leaving but I was still very relaxed. Anyway I had booked on the internet and didn’t have a ticket as such just a booking confirm so I went to the building first and found we just needed to go to the boarding area.

We were stopped at passport control and had to fill out forms and answer heaps of questions about what we were up to!! Far worse than flying into Heathrow, London! I was still relaxed because we were now right on time, however when we pulled up and handed over our booking reference we were told the next boat was 11am. I checked my booking and my calculations were all on arrival time at Dover! Hmm lucky it wasn’t a plane and they just let us take the next boat!!!

The cliffs of Dover are superb and just as we had imagined.

First views of the cliffs of Dover
awesome!




We drove up the coast towards Brighton. It is funny to be back in an English speaking country and Geoff has done well with the driving – just seemed to slip into old habits! We stopped at a café for lunch and had of all things cheese on toast which we have not had for months! We won’t mention the spotted dick that Geoff had or the fab banoffe pie that I had!

There is only one camp in Brighton and I had tried to book on the internet some time ago and it was all booked out this weekend. I rang a few days ago but still booked out. Anyway we went there on the off chance because I really wanted a camp since our toilet has not been flushing for 24 hours???? At the office they said no room so I booked for Sunday and Monday night and while I was standing there they suddenly remembered they did have two sites just for tonight. So that sorted tonight, we just have Saturday to sort.

It is a quite expensive camp because we don’t belong to the caravan club but beautiful facilities. The toilet block is heated and the showers are just like home – hot and you can have as long as you want – marvelous!


Richard and Karen very kindly picked us up and took us back to their place. We walked into the village by their place and had a drink. Geoff got an amazing coffee made after much discussion with the owner!! We picked up some Thai (I have been craving some Thai for months) and took it back to Richard and Karen’s and had a lovely evening. Richard and Karen have a great setup just being able to walk down to shops and cafes and also to work – bliss!