Oop North (Kent coastline edition)

Today was an off-weather sorta day, which isn't the end of the world really when armed with a wardrobe of weather resistant motorcycle clothing. The plan was to head north up the coast for some urban exploring, touristy sightseeing, and just finding out what was around the next corner. The satnav & mapping was to be avoided unless strictly necessary which we managed to a large extent.

The edge of Folkestone was skirted with a great view from Crete Road East, through Capel-Le-Ferne, Dover, and into St.Margaret's At Cliffe where we tried to find a suitably shunpikey route to no avail. We tried a couple of single-track lanes near the coast and checking later, one of them did lead to the next village but legally as a bridlepath only so back land to the A road it was for a mile or so.

Turning back only the narrows took us almost down to the seafront at Kingsdown, the last privately owned 100yards to the pebble beach being ridden rebelliously not that anyone seemed to mind. We took a customary picture of our boots at the waters edge.(blip), saddled up and bimbled onwards and keeping the sea in sight through to Deal before turning inland to go hunting for a gastronomic sounding roadsign where we met three beautiful rescue Greyhounds.

From there we bimbled a short way into the town of Sandwich and found a nice cafe for lunch - Panini for Ms.Bestie & Eggs Benedict for your Gal. An afternoon dinner stroll around revealed all manner of old buildings, along with the towns old Toll Gate at the River Stour swingbridge. We rode over said crossing a short while later without charge as Motor-Bicycles hadn't been invented when the list of Tolls was drawn up and there is no way was I paying for Biscuit's Twenty Horses.

Pegwell Bay, Furthest & Dearest tells me was the site of Ramsgate Hoverport until the mid 1980s. Much of the site is demolished and overgrown but we managed to clamber over an old pedestrian footbridge and find the apron from area where the huge SR.N4 hovercraft came & went between here & France.

Echoing our noisy beasts through the Port Of Ramsgate tunnels & past said Port, we then emerged along the very pretty Royal Parade and parked next to the harbour full of expensive looking yachts. Ramsgate was a nice place, nearby Margate however not so much, but I did manage to find some sticks of rock to take home. We missed out Broadstairs due to the time passing too quickly with a few more things on our to-do list.

Herne Bay saw us park next to a gracefully aging sidecar combination - the base machine unusually being a 2-stroke Suzuki GT750 'kettle' with lots of modifications. The town also brought us two statues - inventor, Barnes Wallis & aviator, Amy Johnson - followed by a chance discovery of a Lion Foundry Postbox, and even better, a cafe still open at 6pm that provided a cup of tea, a cappuchoochoo, and the nicest Cookie to share. We were out of energy after that, even with the caffeine and sugar rush, so after buying something for tea from a supermarket, we headed back to base down a very wet & windy number of A roads.

Tea, in both cuppa & bowl of soupful form, preceded a hot shower and sleep for our last night in lovely Kent.