The sea is calm tonight,
                    The tide is full, the moon lies fair
                    Upon the straits; on the French coast the light
                    Gleams and is gone; the cliffs of England stand,
                    Glimmering and vast, out in the tranquil bay.

 

The twenty mile stretch along the exhilarating coastal pathway atop the white cliffs of Dover (best seen offshore from a boat), is completed. The tent is pitched. The good hot meal is devoured al fresco. Now there is nothing left to do but gently slumber to the accompaniment of the soft patter of raindrops on the flysheet. This is Kent: the Garden of England and this is camping and caravanning country.

The strange and contradictory history of this closest corner of England to the continent is practically impossible to summarise. Go and bury yourself in its teeming and tangible history. Traditionally a holiday resort for Londoners, this historic landfall has borne witness to the conquest of Julius Caesar, the Saxons and thereafter William the Conqueror, all of whom have bequeathed significant historical monuments throughout the county. The Romans built a lighthouse on the cliffs; it is still there. The Saxons brought Christianity and a cathedral, the Normans the powerful mass of Dover Castle. But don't miss the minor pleasures, the white clapboard village high streets of the Weald are waiting as are the Kentish farms with their hop gardens and oast houses, their apple orchards and rosy-cheeked locals.

One of England's most venerable cities, Canterbury, contains the cathedral founded by that other Augustine, and the mother church of the nation. Here Archbishop Thomas Becket was murdered as he stood at the altar on the orders of the King. Obviously it is a matter of necessity to experience the triple towered magnificence of this great ecclesiastical monument, a fitting climax to your camping and caravanning sojourn in Kent.