Snow, Glorious Snow (and a weekend in Canterbury & Dover)

Monday 2nd February 2008

It is not often I enjoy waking up for work on a Monday morning. However, today was different. We opened the curtains to see the glorious white stuff covering every square inch of the ground. We turned on the radio and connected to the internet - to see what we'd all been hoping for. School closure!!!! The weather was too bad to make students (and staff) travel to school. I don't care, a day off!! Although because we live close to school, we did have to show our faces in case there were students that didn't listen to the radio (or look out the window) that needed supervision until being able to go home. Luckily the kids were smart enough not to turn up, and 10 minutes later we were home again! Dan, Hannah and I needed to go food shopping, so we trekked down to the local supermarket and bought supplies, and then trekked home again. Walking through slushy, dirty snow and ice. Yuk. But again, still happy not to be at school! The rest was much needed after such a big weekend…

Friday afternoon we jumped on the train into London to begin the adventure to Canterbury. After the 50 minutes to Fenchurch St Station (Yep, already got the photo), then another 45 minute tube trip to Victoria St, we decided it was tea time. A very healthy and expensive meal at Burger King (Chilli Cheese balls are super yum) was in order. We packed into the crowed national rail train headed for Canterbury, we were a little late and had to stand for the first hour.
Arriving in Canterbury at 9pm, the first thing we saw when walking out of the train station was the awesome Roman City Walls, which still surround Canterbury. We then had to jump on a local bus to take us out to the pub where we were staying. The alcoholic couple sitting next to us on the bus were having a rather entertaining, yet heated argument about her drinking on the bus and about her being a 'giver' not a 'taker'. Most amusing. Our accommodation for the next two nights was this cute little pub/restaurant, which had a large barn style building out the back with rooms in it. We had a few quiet drinks when we arrived (I like the yellow beer, not the warm brown variety), and it was off to bed after a very long afternoon of travelling.

We got into Canterbury early the next morning (after a terrific English breakfast at the pub - however fried bread is not nice) and started exploring this very old city. First we walked around the city walls until we got to a large park, with a circular wooden maze. We had a race to the centre, and although the photos indicate Dan claiming victory, I did win. We did realise once in the centre, that it is a childrens maze - no wonder it only took us 15 seconds to reach the slide in the centre. Next to the maze was big mound type hill. Dan made me walk to the top. It only had a statue on top and a plaque for someone named "Farquhar" (hehe), wasn't very exciting, for such a long steep walk. We found the old Norman Canterbury Castle. Falling down in bits, and completely empty inside, we had a quick squiz inside, and then left to find Hannah and Belinda who had made their way to a local visitor attraction "The Canterbury Tales". Based on stories from the book of the same name, this place was seriously strange. We walked in, paid the hefty entrance fee, were given headphones and told to walk through a door. This musty smelling, dimly light room housed a number of wax people telling stories from the book through the infrared headphones. 45 minutes later, I questioned why we paid to enter such a place. Onto the main street of Canterbury, we had a look up and down, found a cute little river through the middle, then made our way to the famous Canterbury Cathedral. In no ways does this place compare with history of Bendigo's cathedral - there's only 900 years between when they were each built. Canterbury Cathedral is where some old priest, Thomas Abecket was killed allegedly but Henry the II. (Marto, are you impressed with this history yet?!?!?) His tomb became a shrine where 1000's of came on a pilgrimage to get closed to God. Then a few hundred years later Henry the 8th ordered anything to do with him to be destroyed. So now there is just a candle burning where his tomb was. The stained glass in the place was pretty cool too. Only a few of the originals remain though, cause old Henry destroyed a lot of them too. We also had a look around the grounds of the Cathedral, and in the back there is a very exclusive private school. "The Kings School". I wanted to go in and ask if there were any maths positions available. Their school buildings were hundreds of years old - very impressive. From here we found a pub around the corner - ironically called "Thomas Becket". Had a few ales then went on to find another cosy little pub in the lonely planet guide. After a few more, Dan and I headed back to our accommodation for a nightcap and bed.

The next morning (again after a yummy English breakfast - no fried bread today though) we jumped on a bus to Dover. A nice lady told the 4 confused Aussies that we could stay on the bus and it would take us all the way up to Dover Castle, which sits perched on the top the white cliffs. As we started walking in it started snowing. Freezing cold. We spent hours in there doing tours of the Secret World War II tunnels, the tunnels from the Napoleonic war, and just wandering through the many different parts of the castle. There was a roman lighthouse there, built 50AD. That's old. I don't know why people tried to invade that castle; some of the hills were just way too big. Who could be bothered? The view from the castle allowed us to sorta see an outline of France. If the weather had have been better we could've seen more. We were able to see the port where the top gear guys launched their amphibious vehicles to set sail across the English Channel (Although only Clarksons Toy-boat-a was the only one to make it!) After the many hours at the castle we decided we'd better quickly see the White Cliffs before having to head back home. The same nice lady who showed us how to get to the castle, also gave us directions to the cliffs. So we headed off down the path. 20 minutes down a road, with no footpaths and hardly any traffic, we decided we were heading severely in the wrong direction. We turned around and headed back towards town. A long stroll, down a big hill and we arrived at the pebbly beach. We walked out to a little pier and could see some of the cliffs. But unfortunately we had to leave in order to catch the train back home. At least on the train out of Dover, we got some up close views of the cliffs! The journey home was long, and we didn't get home until 9pm. It was straight to bed. We had to work Monday morning… or did we??!?!