The Key to England

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Catching the Ferry

I thought my drive from Lille to Dunkirk would be fairly straight forward since it was only 80km away and involved using a motorway for the majority of the journey. I set my alarm, allowing 2.5 hours in total before my ferry would set sail for England. I woke up one hour before my alarm was due to go off. I was feeling tired, but could not go back to sleep so decided to get up and get to the ferry earlier than planned.

I selected the port location on my Satnav and set off for home. The weather was bad with heavy rain. I decided I had plenty of time with waking up early and went at a steady pace on the motorway. Once I got to Dunkirk, the traffic was bad, but I finally got to the port. At reaching the port, I could not see any signs for the ferry, I kept driving around and around, but nothing. I managed to pull over and got the internet on my phone and discovered the ferry port was the other side of Dunkirk. I realized time was against me as I had one hour before last arrival on the ferry. Panicking, I started speeding as I battled with the traffic. I took a wrong turn and ended up in some supermarket car park. I knew time was against me and could not see the exit, only the entrance, which was one-way. I waited for no cars to be coming and started exiting the wrong way. Of course, cars started heading at my direction, beeping at me. I pull onto the pavement and apologized and kept slowly driving until I completely exited the entrance. With 10 minutes to spare, I made it for the ferry check-in. PHEW!

I hate to think what would have happened if I hadn't woken up earlier.

Dover Castle

After enduring a choppy ferry ride across the English Channel, I arrived back at the Port of Dover. It felt good to be back in the UK but felt odd to be driving back on the left hand-side of the road.

Since I was in Dover and had time, I decided I wanted to see Dover Castle. The castle is owned by a charity group called English Heritage, and I pay an annual subscription which means I can get into any of their sites for free. I believe a day ticket would usually cost around 20 GBP.

This medieval castle was founded in the 11th century and it's the largest castle in the whole of Britain. Dover Castle is known as the "Key to England" this is due to its defensive significance throughout history. The castle offers lots of impressive views of the town, port, sea and the famous white cliffs.

Operation Dynamo

The castle has secret wartime tunnels and played a crucial role in rescuing more than 330,000 soldiers from Dunkirk in World War II. The British and French armies got cornered by the advancing German army near Dunkirk in 1940 and the cliff tunnels were the nerve centre of the operation for trying to rescue the troops. Basically all seaworthy crafts in Kent got sent across the English Channel to rescue the troops with the best estimate that only 45,000 of the troops could be brought back, however, a great achievement as it ended up being more than 330,000 soldiers.

Unfortunately photos are not allowed to be taken inside the tunnels, but there is an opportunity for a well informative guided tour with a museum of Operation Dynamo.

Battle of Britain Flypast

I recalled my dad telling me that the Battle of Britain Flypast was taking place to commemorating the 75th anniversary of the Battle of Britain and to be attentive as the Spitfires and Hurricanes will probably fly past Dover.

Towards the cliff of the castle, I saw people hanging around with binoculars so I asked if they were waiting for the planes, which they were. After about 30 minutes of waiting, the planes finally showed up and did several laps around the castle. A perfect time to visit Dover Castle as seeing these planes was spectacular.

Annoyingly my camera zoom is not the best but the photos came out ok. I'm afraid I can't tell the difference between a Hurricane and Spitfire, as they look similar to me, but I believe they were Spitfires.

End

Arriving back on home soil meant that my adventure had come to an end, but spending my last day at Dover Castle was a special way to end this incredible journey. Taking my car to Europe meant that I had the freedom to see so many different places in just over 2 weeks. I'd definitely do it again.

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Comments

[Dancing Dave]

The Battle of Britain
To be at Dover Castle for the 75th Anniversary of the Battle of Britain flyover...can't think of a better place. What a homecoming!

[Readingfcboi]

The Battle of Britain
It really was a perfect homecoming. Just a shame my zoom wasn't good enough to get close ups.

[D MJ Binkley]

A heart stopping journey
Up early and the plans still went sideways. Thank goodness you made it. I could feel your stress in your writing.

[Readingfcboi]

Stressed
Thanks! I get stressed just thinking about the story, even though it ended positive.