Friday 31st July am Chatham and Upnor Castle

We had our breakfast and ordered poached eggs. Sometime later the lady who served us came into the breakfast room and called out "Poached Eggs" Yes that's us. Well today we can't do poached eggs I'm sorry. We said that they should get a new chef. Oh it's something to do with the eggs!!!!

We headed for Chatham and being not too far arrived for a coffee. This place also has a High Street that is pedestrians only. It's so nice to be able to wander and not have to bother about traffic.

Speaking of traffic one of the many concerns that we have whilst driving and because the Brits park anywhere and in any direction we find it quite concerning when we come around a bend and here's a car facing in our direction - oh it's just parked we won't crash today.

We went into Debenhams - bit like Farmers back home and after a time came out with a large plastic bag? Shirts and Bras, wahoo. We then went to the Post Office to get stamps for cards home. Went to a card shop then back to the car to go to Upnor.

Upnor has a castle that is built on the banks of the Medway River. The English back in the 1560s used to moor their ships up at Chatham where there was also a shipyard. The castle was built in 1559 to protect the approach to the harbour and had some very big cannons. In 1667 despite a brave attempt to defend the river and dockyard the castle failed to protect against the Dutch who sailed up under the guns and burnt the fleet at anchor. The castle was abandoned as a protection fort and used after that for a gunpowder magazine.

There was little free parking in the allotted parking lot so we went down a side street and just parked in from of someone's house.