So this morning I woke up bright and early and trekked down to New Malden (south of Wimbledon) to meet Geoff and Shane at Enterprise Car Hire, ready for our drive down to the beach! We got the car from a very sassy salesman who criticised us for not taking on the extra payments to reduce excesses etc. Needless to say, I was annoyed, but just shrugged it off and hopped in the car. Geoff was running late so we swung by his place in Sutton to pick him up before jumping on the M25 and eastbound down to Kent. We hit the coast in Dover, where I finally saw the white cliffs (!) and the gorgeous castle overlooking the town. Definitely earmarking that one for another trip. From there we followed the coastal road around to Deal, our destination for the day, where we arrived at about 11:10. We found a free car park on a street right by Deal Castle, which was closed, sadly. From there we went for a big wander down the beach, heading down onto the pebbles to wander back in the direction of the car. It was such a beautiful clear day, so much so that we could see across to Calais! We stuck our fingers in the water and were surprised that it wasn’t quite as cold as expected - although definitely still not warm enough for a swim. 

We headed in the direction of the pier and on the way saw a sign for fish and chips advertising ‘voted top 5 in the UK’. It was time for lunch so we didn’t take much convincing and headed in to order a fish and chips each. It was a super quirky little place tiled with music on the walls, and the guy behind the counter said someone on tripadviser had said he had the ‘best fish and chips in the world’! Once we had our fish and chips we carried it back to the beach and picked a spot on the pebbles to sit and eat. I don’t know about ‘best in the world’ but they were pretty good! Once we’d eaten and enjoyed sitting in the sun for a while, we wandered along the pier. It was very windy, but a beautiful view back over the cute little town and down the beach to either side of the pier. From the pier we kept walking along the waterfront, all very impressed with what we saw of the town - particularly all the baskets of flowers hanging from the pubs, shops and street lights. Very pretty! 

Once we’d finished a tour of the town, we headed back to the car and headed inland a little way to Sandwich. We just couldn’t resist visiting a town with such a silly name! We found a park and went for a walk, blown away by how gorgeous it was! The buildings were mostly Tudor-style historic buildings, with tiny streets winding between them. Most of the shops were closed, with just a few locals sitting out the front of the pubs and down by the river, but it was a great spot for a little walking tour. There are Roman ruins nearby as well, but the spots were all booked out for visiting today, so instead we continued along the coastal road. 

Our next step was Ramsgate, which was much bigger and more industrial than Deal, but still had beautiful beaches. These were sandy beaches so there were loads more people lying on the beach, and we wondered if that had contributed to it being a bigger town! We had a quick look around and then drove around to a point called Botany Bay. This was very novel, but unfortunately we couldn’t find a park so that we could go for a walk. It was getting towards the time when we needed to start heading back to London as well so after a few circles of the area, we got back on the road. We got a scenic route out of Kent, driving through Margate (another beach town) before getting on the freeway. It was a smooth drive back to London that took us almost exactly 2 hours and we arrived back at Enterprise at 5:50pm, just before the 6pm cut off. Then it was just back on the train for me and heading home for a quiet evening!