Experience our first night wild camping, ha, ha parking on the verge across the road from Richard's cousins property snug as a bug under our 13.5 tog doona.

Said our goodbyes till we meet them again and set the Satnav for Sandwich said to be "one of the most well preserved medieval towns in Britain" and you won't find a MacDonalds here. Sandwich is an estuary town on the River Stour a quaint period town whose origin status as a port has passed into history as the town now stands some two miles from the coast. A maze of ancient streets, alleyways and attractive old buildings many dating back to the 1200’s.

We are getting used to driving down small lanes through little villages and country sides of rich earth supplying the country with vegies, sheep and other food product. I love how the farmers use hedges as boundaries between all their fields and along the roadside you see this for miles into the distance and lots of trees.

Our journey from Margate to Sandwich didn’t take long, over the one lane bridge we parked next to the other motorhomes. To get a ticket for parking you enter your Rego number then the number of hours you want to stay very different to Australia, plus there is no free parking.

The Barbican and Toll Bridge to the town had the tradition of collecting a fee to cross the river this dates back to King Canute who first granted a charter to the Monks of Christchurch in Canterbury to operate a ferry in the early 11^th century and the Bridge Toll collection ended in 1977.

With map of the Sandwich Town Trails we explored the old town, the Guildhall in the town square was the first stop. The 4^th Earl of Sandwich is said to have invented the modern sandwich in 1762 at the gaming table when he asked for meat to be served between slices of bread to avoid interrupting gameplay. I would hate to go on trial centuries ago in this court room.

A hot cup of coffee warmed our bones before venturing on to Moat Sole St. Thomas’ Hospital named in honour of St Thomas Beckett, in 1392 it accommodated 12 poor people. We continued on our pleasant walk along the walls surrounding the medieval town passing the Butts (now the cricket ground) believed to be the site where Henry V’s archers practiced before sailing for their famous victory at Agincourt, France in 1415.

Pity the Gallows Fields the town’s place of executions where felons were hanged and witches were drowned is now all overgrown the last hangings took place in the 1790’s.

Lastly as time was marching on we walked along Strand Street and is considered to be the longest continuous stretch of timber-framed buildings in the country. Of all places we meet a couple from Perth touring just like us.

Lunchtime and we are off down the coast to Deal where we will stay the night at Cottington Lakes (a Caravanning Club site). Signage in England is terrible if you blink and it is not on the Satnav you miss the turn.

Deal is a limb of sandwich and its motto is "Befriend the Stranger" though lacking a harbour Deal had the benefit of the famous Downs Anchorage, the stretch of water between the shore and the Goodwin Sands. In the 1800’s Deal’s unspoilt seafront was full of dangerous smuggling haunts but is now a wonderful collection of colourful buildings complemented by the fishing boats hauled up onto the shingle beach giving it a unique vista.
 
It is still cold and windy even though the sun is out we walked out on the Deal Pier which was built in 1954 the pier was the first seaside pleasure pier of any size to be built since 1910 opened in 1957 and is 1026 feet long the last pleasure pier to be constructed in Britain. The pier has international recognition as an angling avenue. A new look café-bar is situated at the end of the pier and if you take the steps down there is another section where you can fish Richard talked the usual fishing things with some fishermen before the chilly wind was too much.

A walk along the promenade took us to the Deal Castle one of the finest Tudor artillery castles in England, we are too late to explore the castle from the exciting dark passages to the first-floor captain’s residence.

One loses track of time it is 6pm and the shops are closing and we are thanking to the workman who showed us the free 2 hour verge parking for our motorhome, as the Carparks aren’t long enough and you get fined.

Time to return to the Cottington Lakes site, which is now easy to find second time round.