Holiday 08 - Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch Railway

Continuing with the nostalgia trip of the day in Ashford, we spent Tuesday on the Romney, Hythe and Dymchurch railway. My first ever school trip was to see the lighthouse and lifeboat at dungeness before going on this railway.

We got on at Hythe, and squeezed into the very petite carriages. Rocky enjoyed going on these trains in a way he didn't like the train to London because it was slower. He could take it all in.

Our first stop was St. Mary's Bay. I wanted to stop here because i remembered going to a pretty beach when I was young here. I have since found out that there are two st. mary's bays, and we got off at the wrong one. Amazing beach, but bleak as anything, especially in the drizzle. No wonder everyone looked at us a bit funny when we got off at this stop.



So we got back on the train pretty sharpish, once we realised that there was nothing actually at St. Mary's Bay, and in my nostalgic frame of mind, we went onto Dungeness.

Now, I clearly didn't remember the real Dungeness because if i had, we would have gone to Dymchurch or New Romney. It's hard to do justice to the astonishing sites of Dungeness. Words like 'Post-apocalyptic', 'wild-west', 'god forsaken, 'end of the world' spring to mind.




Whereas Paris has the Eiffel Tower, and Florida has Disneyworld, Dungeness has a pub, a cafe, a lighthouse, a nuclear power station, some ramshackle shacks and mile upon mile of shingle. Strange, foreign, compelling, but maybe not so much that you'd want to go there again.