Happy Over the Hump day! In 11 days, I will be on my way home and I can't wait; I miss home!
We began the day very
early due to our day trip to Chiselhurst Caves and Dover and we left Homerton
at 8:00. I woke up not in the greatest
shape but felt much better than yesterday when I went to bed and I was in good
spirits, but as the day went on I felt the effects of being constantly on the
go and stuck with a cold!
The first leg of our
journey to Chiselhurst Caves was an adventure because our bus driver got us
lost. It took us 2.5 hours to get there
instead of 1.5 hours…one of the British guys in our group pulled up GPS on his
cell phone and helped the driver get us to our destination (Thanks David
Lloyd)! The Chiselhurst Caves have been
used for hundreds of years as a place to grow mushrooms, and most importantly,
a shelter for 15,000+ Brits during the bombings by the Germans during the Battle
of Britain. Once we arrived, we had a 2
hour tour of the caves from our guide who was once a little boy who stayed with
his family in the caves during the bombings and he took us to some
remote/unauthorized caverns deep within Chiselhurst Caves. At one point, he went too far and realized
that only small children could fit into the area, so we turned around and went
the long way but the other NOVA teacher Jaime, decided that he would go and
crawl on his hands and knees through the small opening. We thought it was funny but when we called
out to him and we got no response, our organizers got nervous but he popped out
way ahead of us after we turned around so things were fine. Our guide even played a joke on us by taking
away our lanterns and left us completely in the dark; he then proceeded to come
around from behind us to scare us since he had practically grown up in these
caves his entire life, he knew were all of the hiding places were.
Next, we boarded back
onto the bus and headed for Dover. I was
a little tired/sick so I slept for the rest of the way to Dover – about 1 hour
away from the caves. Once we got to
Dover, the weather was ugly and rainy; we were a little disappointed but we
carried on. Jenny, one of the organizers
of our trip, at one point worked at the Dover Castle complex so she had been
able to organize a behind the scenes tour of the castle from her friend who was
our guide. The tour lasted a little over an hour, and he covered over 1000
years of Dover Castle history, ranging from the reign of Henry II, the Medieval
times, the American Revolution, French Revolution, and both world wars. Due to the past hatred of France and Britain,
Dover Castle has always been heavily fortified by the British in case of an
attack from the French; it is because of this and the fact that the French laid
siege to Dover Castel for over a year but failed that Dover has earned the
title as “the key to England.” Also, the
area surrounding Dover Castle was heavily bombed by the Germans during the Battle
of Britain but was unharmed because Hitler planned to use the Castle as his
command headquarters when the Nazis were to invade England – but that never
happened.
After our tour was
over, we had 2.5 hours to tour the complex on our own. I went and did a self-guided tour of the
Medieval tunnels underneath the castle complex, toured the castle and went to
the top where I had a wonderful look across the English Channel to France, and
toured the underground tunnel complex that the Brits created and used as a
headquarters during WWII. Dover Castle
was also the spot where the British undertook the withdrawal of British and
French from Dunkirk in April/May of 1940 because Dunkirk can be seen across the
channel. What a beautiful view! Finally, I went to the area of the complex
to take a look at the world famous white cliffs of Dover – one of the most
beautiful sites I’ve ever seen; however, just as I was about to take some
photos of the white cliffs, the batteries died in my camera! What a bummer…I’m so mad!
When we were finished,
we headed back to the bus for our 2 hour or so ride back to Homerton. We had cold sandwiches and chips for dinner
on the bus, but the rest of the ride back, I was miserable due to behind
completely exhausted and sick. After I
got back to my room, I took a hot shower, and plan on taking my dear old friend
(Nyquil) again tonight. Hopefully, I
will be on my way to recovery tomorrow because I have more planning to do with
my group and I want to be better before my day trip on Saturday to Stonehenge
and Bath.
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