It's a bit surreal to think that something I've thought about doing since I was eleven years old is already halfway over. It's one of those things that you know is going to happen but you still expect it to just... not. Like graduating from high school. Getting married. Losing someone you love.
Reading Week can be a Big Deal for some - the majority of the people I've met are off traveling around Europe with their respective friends and family. But I'm still here in London, writing this post on a Tuesday morning. On Saturday, however, I made the trip down to Dover via train for the day.
Dover is a tiny little port city in Kent on the southeastern coast of the English mainland. When I told my friends I was going to see the white cliffs, they looked at me in confusion. They had never heard of them before, which in turn took me by surprise. Surely they'd seen the pictures, right? The white standing cliffs with the beautiful light blue ocean crashing against their resilient form, and the sky so close in color that the horizon blends into the sea? But no, they were clueless.
It takes about an hour by train and the views are beautiful; there was a moment when the train vanished in a tunnel under something but then reemerged into the cold, 9 AM morning to reveal a beautiful view of the seaside. It's one of those Very Beautiful Things in the Universe you can only really experience as a surprise; you never expect to be gifted with the serenity of the ocean, but then it appears and you're stunned into silence.
Departing the station and finding the cliffs wasn't easy. It's about a 2-mile walk from Dover Priory Station to the beginning of the incline, but there's marked pathways and a beautiful scenic stroll just along the shore. I felt like I was inside one of those sound machines--the ones with the cartoonish seagull squawks and the over-exaggerated ocean sounds.
I made it up the cliffs with relative ease, albeit huffing and puffing as I climbed. But the views immediately made everything worth it. It's like, every time you think you've found the best view, you can keep walking along the edge of the cliff and you'll find an even more breathtaking spot. Everything is blanketed in a sea of the greenest, freshest grass imaginable just up until you get to the edge of the cliff. The white rocks of the cliff faces are such a stark contrast to the grass that you'd think someone painted them. But the cliffs give way to the stunning English channel that goes on forever in most places; there's a stretch of land just visible on the other side--that's the French coastline.
I felt like I was on the Edge of the World.
Now, I must put a disclaimer here that I was by myself on this trip; that being said, I encourage more people to do things by themselves. While the company of another person is welcoming (comforting, even), being by yourself only encourages you to be more aware of your environment. All of your attention is on what surrounds you. When that's the case, you can really see everything.
I stood on the cliffs for about two hours. This was my Big Deal, you see; this is what I came to experience. I asked a stranger to take photos of me--for aesthetic reasons, of course--and then I had a delicious slice of apple cake and a cup of tea at the visitors' center. Then I walked the two miles back to the station, got on my train, and headed back to St. Pancras International in London.
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