Day 5: Whitstable, Chatham, Rochester, Maldon

Jacky, Kim and Jean made me very welcome in their Margate home for two days. Jacky runs Spirit Roadshows in the Thanet area and the next one is on October 2nd where I will be doing taster numerology sessions.

Now some folks close to me might suggest that I can tend to be a little bit judgemental, and yesterday I went to Whitstable and was singularly underwhelmed. Far from being as picturesque as I had been led to believe, it was heaving with people, aggressive drivers, and nowhere to park. I went straight back to Margate.

However, today in the spirit of fairness, I decided to give it another chance

I parked on the edge of the town centre and followed people striding purposefully ahead of me down a well signposted cycle footpath; the Crab and Winkle Trail with blossom and bird song and no traffic at all.

It lead to a compact working harbour where there were tall black weatherboarded buildings, working fishermen unloading their catch.

 And the famous Whitstable oysters laid out to tempt tourists.

Oysters cannot tempt me. I chickened out and bought an ice cream instead.

After wandering round the harbour and exploring the town it was onwards to Chatham and Rochester.

The route was really pretty with acres of fruit trees in blossom, and fields of acid yellow rape crop dazzling in the sunshine.

I went round a tight corner on a single track road and met a juggernaut. He was stuck and therefore so was I.

It took him 26 minutes of manoeuvring in a farm driveway to get himself un-stuck, then with me following, he crawled on for about 3 miles until we were back on a b-road. Bet it was a sat-nav error!

Chatham is the dockyard whose history began in the time of Henry VIII. He had storehouses there to service his fleet at anchor in the river Medway. Drake, Nelson and Hawkins all sailed from there, and Nelsons flagship HMS Victory was one of 400 ships built there.

The Historic Dockyard is a whole day out experience so I did not stay but they have warships and lifeboats and rope making amongst its many naval exhibitions

Lunch called, so Rochester was my next stop. 

I parked on the Esplanade and walked up to a very impressive Castle. My daughter is s fan of castles and intends to visit all of the castles in the UK alongside her partner in crime and best friend Chloe. They’ve already visited this one and were impressed. You can read her thoughts on her blog.

Rochester also has a beautiful cathedral.

I was expecting a lot of Charles Dickens references, but Broadstairs has far more obvious ones than I saw in Rochester, although a local said they have an annual Dickens festival in the town in June.

There was a super Huguenot Museum in the town with an interesting and creative workshop programme.

I drove through the Dartford Tunnel; painfully slowly. Intended to do one last stop at Southend but I somehow lost Southend and bypassed it completely. Sorry Southend.

And now here I am in the Salt town of Maldon, staying in a fascinating 14th century wooden cottage with tonight's hosts Belinda, Noel, Flora their Romanian rescue dog and two cats.