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Dungeness

Maggot said:
I already mentioned it. :p

But seeing as el Jefe has blown out his trip, it's all a bit academic.
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Oh beg yer pardon Maggot, so you did :o And the lighthouse too.

But you didn't post a pretty picture, or mention the neighbour's garden :p

sus: I can't think of a worse place to have a rave really. I'm sure it was horrible. Sorry to hear about your friend. Pneumonia is a bitch.
 
I didn't know about the neighbour's garden, and will definitely look out for it next time I'm there. So your post wasn't a complete waste of space!
 
I used to fish at Dungeness. I'd take off after work on Friday and go from an air conditioned block in Sutton to the roaring waves as darkness fell, catching the odd bass if I was lucky. I like the place, but not sure what you'd do if you were hanging around for very long except walk along the beach

Dungeness and bits of Nevada look similar, oddly
 
One of the weird things about Dungeness is that once you're down at the tideline it actually feels really closed in and almost claustrophobic. Maybe cos there's nothing to measure anything against.

Spion: I'm not a fisher myself but I've seen some lovely bass landed at Dungeness.
 
The shingle slopes really steeply and the point gets the full force of the channel tides, so it can feel pretty hairy. And the shingle is so hard to walk on you wouldn't be massively confident of getting out again if you went in if the sea was really running.

Dungeness was really famous for shore fishing til the commercial business decimated stocks. There's a feature in the sea just off the point called 'the dustbin' which is like an eddy that hold lots of debris the fish like(d) to feed on. People used to get 100lb of cod a night out of there from the shore.

I'll get me (sea angling) anorak :)
 
Yeah, I remember that steep shingle. Scary, sometimes.

I'd heard about amazing catches, but not heard the reason before.

Remember that peculiar copper-green colour the sea goes there sometimes?
 
Orang Utan said:
I wanna explore Dickens' Kent - there's that churchyard from the opening of Great Expectations - it's still there and is still spooky and misty apparently
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From memory it was based on several local churches.

Cooling church has the touching child graves (more than in the book) and is well looked after despite being shut for years. Cooling also has an excellent local pub, and pop star living in the old castle grounds.

St Mary's church in nearby Higham (walkable from Cooling and near the station), has more of the remote atmosphere of the book and, unlike Cooling, is out on the marshes.

Both are worth a visit.
 
Went there yesterday - it's an awesome, unique place - bleak but beautiful - the 'dullness' of the shingle is lifted by extremely bright yellow gorse and pink flowers
Definitely gonna return.
 
Dhimmi said:
Narrow gauge railway?

08_head_image_full.jpg


http://www.rhdr.org.uk/rhdr/home_flash.html
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Went on this too - it's so tiny, it makes you feel like a giant.
 
The last time I went, it was a grey, rainy bank holiday type day, and we had a very cold picnic on the beach nearby before wandering, looking at Derek Jarman's cottage and garden, and then had dinner in a pub very near the power station. I remember there being a steam train going past, as well, and trying to take a photo of it, with the power station in the background and Jarman's cottage in the foreground, but I am not sure it worked.

But yes, I think it's worth a day trip.....
 
Great place to build a nuclear power station IMHO place looks and feels like the end of the world has already happened.In winter it feels like purgatory in summer even with the endless blue skies its just not right .
 
One of the photos I took was of this really strange "garden", a little way away from Jarman's

174945903_29b0857052_b.jpg


Also, it was disconcerting because of the constant hum from the power station, which just made it seem more spooky, but also succeeded in scaring my daughter!
 
dylanredefined said:
Great place to build a nuclear power station IMHO place looks and feels like the end of the world has already happened.In winter it feels like purgatory in summer even with the endless blue skies its just not right .
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I don't see what's not quite right about it - I found it very tranquil
 
Went there again yesterday. Lovely day for it. This time we spent more time on the shingle near the power station, getting our head round the fact that if is a bona fide desert - the UK's only one.
Shingle is a slog to walk on but the noise of it is mesmerising. The pebbles vary in sizes in different stretches and clink at different pitches. And hearing it all be swished around by the tide is quite a tonic.
We walked in front of the power station, observing thousands of birds feeding from the sea where I assume is an outflow pipe from the nuclear power station. There were lots of fisherman taking advantage of this (I don't know if they eat the fish feed off radioactive effluent though).
We thought we might be able to walk around the power station but we could only get round the back. Surprisingly the gate at the back was wide open. There were notices warning that it was a nuclear facility but no explicit warning about entering. We chickened walking further in though. Weirdly at the side that faced the beach, there were electric fencing and dire warnings about trespass.
We also visited the sound mirrors, the highlight of the day. They are experimental listening stations built to detect aircraft, but never used because radar made them obsolete. They look like massive concrete microphones, right out of a JG Ballard story.
We also went to see another in Hythe cos we couldn't get close enough to them as they're surrounded by gravel pits filled with water in a nature reserve with dragonflies whizzing about everywhere.
Will put some pics up. Some are by my friend Piers and some are mine. Just phone pics mind.
 
Orang Utan said:
They are experimental listening stations built to detect aircraft, but never used because radar made them obsolete.
Click to expand...

Actually sound mirrors were used successfully (they had been developed back in the later stages of WWI), however the rapid improvement in aircraft performance eroded the early warning margin they provided and then radar came along...
 
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