Rodney was disappointed that the 9:45am train wasn’t a steam engine, but the lady driver set a cracking pace along the 13.5 miles / 22 kilometres of the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway, the smallest public railway in the world. We passed our campsite and a couple of farms, we crossed level crossings and waved to a small boy in a Batman outfit clinging to his back fence. We passed black faced sheep, some shorn so short that you could almost see their bones, then a cricket pitch, allotments, farms, hedges covered in blackberry brambles and pink and creamy honeysuckle all in full flower. While travelling on the miniature railway, we even passed a miniature, miniature railway in someone’s back garden. It was all so wonderfully English.
At Romney New Sands station a steam train passed us going in the opposite direction and everybody waved; not just the children. We travelled across the Romney Marshes and out to Dungeness a rather remote corner of Kent with fishermens’ cottages scattered over an area of shingle beach and weeds. At the end of the line, just past the pub, is an enormous nuclear power station staring out to sea and not looking particularly appealing. Being a bit short on time, we stayed on the train for the return journey to Hythe, rather than wait an hour for the next one.
Apparently we reached a top speed of 22mph /35kmph and it felt pretty fast sitting in such a tiny carriage. On the return journey we shared our carriage with eight very noisy, middle aged women who were reliving their childhood, whilst celebrating a fiftieth birthday for one of them. It was hilarious and we were all “woo wooing” as we passed every level crossing and waved to everyone along the tracks. All in all, it was a fabulously fun way to spend a sunny Thursday morning in England.
When we got back to Hythe, we picked up Eileen (no not literally) and drove across to Rye. We had been there before with Rodney’s brother, Rupert, and we only had good, though vague, memories of the place; perhaps there had been too much chatting going on at the time. Rye really is a lovely town and we were glad we did pop in, but we couldn’t stay long as we had to be at my Auntie Susan’s at 5pm, so we only had a short wander about and refreshed ourselves with a statutory ice cream.
Unfortunately, as we drove west towards Seaford, listening to the dreadful traffic reports all over the country, we got stuck ourselves in a traffic jam in Hastings. After hardly moving for half an hour and phoning my Uncle Tom to warn him he we would likely be late, we struck north up to Battle (1066 and all that). We ended up taking a rather circuitous route, but somehow ended up only being about twenty minutes late; thank goodness for a good map! We had a lovely meal and six hours of endless chatting before sleeping indoors for the first time in fifteen and a half weeks!
And now that we’re in England, we really won’t be doing much in the way of touristy things, so there won’t be many photos or interesting stuff to write about. We’ll be catching up on visits with family and friends all over southern England, plus catching up on all the things that don’t get done when we’re travelling. So we’ll take a break here and resume normal service when we get back on the road again in Eileen.
