Confederacy of a Dunce - Day in Whitstable

Tuesday, August 01, 2006

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As a sort of escape from last week's heat wave, on Saturday Mrs. Dunce and I set off for a seaside adventure: a day trip to Whitstable (wikipedia link). Perhaps best known for its oyster festival which by a remarkable coincidence just happened to be going on at the time. We got an early start (leaving the house at 9:15, which is impressively early compared to ordinary Dunce Saturdays), and made it there by midday or so (somewhat pleased that most of the drunken, lairy individuals riding in the same carriage of our train were continuing on to Broadstairs or perhaps Ramsgate or Margate).

Most of the other people who did get off the train at Whitstable made a beeline towards the sea, while we took a more leisurely approach via Whitstable's shopping district/main drag. This gave us a chance to stop by the local history museum and perhaps build our anticipation of eating some seafood. Soon enough we had made it to the eafood market, where we couldn't stop ourselves from joining the queue for fresh oysters (cracked and cleaned on the spot, £3 for a half-dozen). Plenty of other tasty-looking seafood items were also on offer but we managed to resist... for the moment. It was nice and sunny but not too hot, so we found ourselves a bench at the top of the Tankerton Slopes and relaxed with the nice sea view:

(all photos by Mrs. Dunce). At the bottom of the photo you can see some ;traditional British beach huts, and off in the distance some sailboats massing for the start of a regatta. We hung out on the bench, relaxing, for two or three sailboat-circuits, before we finally wandered down the hill to the "beach". A close-up will reveal the truth:

The rocky beach was very uncomfortable for my poor, soft, coddled feet, but somehow I drew upon every ounce of strength to brave the crashing waves of the open sea.

Then we wandered along the path, past many more beach huts:

Three oysters apiece can hardly be considered a proper lunch, so then it was time for a real lunch at East Quay Shellfish Restaurant. We were hoping for fried oysters, or perhaps a bit of crab, but many items on the menu were no longer available (having been eaten by customers who ate their lunch at lunchtime). Instead we went with fish and chips, very tasty I should add (Mrs. Dunce's huss was especially good). And just around the corner from the restaurant... what could it be but a beer festival? We didn't go overboard, and we stuck strictly to the local offerings (Whitstable Brewery's Oyster Stout, Raspberry Wheat, East India Pale Ale; and Nelson's Powder Monkey). There weren't many shaded areas but we managed to find seats at a picnic table under a rather bedraggled tent, where we relaxed some more and watched the seaside action. As the afternoon went on, it started to get cloudy, and a pretty serious sea breeze kicked up. So of course we moved out to the edge of the (very unsheltered) pier, where we sat for a while longer until the bracing winds became a little bit too much for us:

(I do not ordinarily wear my hair slicked back, and you'll notice I am looking straight into the wind, just in case an unnaturally heavy gust of wind somehow catches my glasses from behind and whips them off my face, in which event they will no doubt be lost in the sea, and I'll have to be helped home by my longsuffering wife).

We wandered around town some more, building up a bit of an appetite for one more dose of seafood. Perhaps a bit apprehensively as we didn't have reservations anywhere. But we managed to get a table at Pearson's Crab and Oyster House (pub downstairs, restaurant upstairs), provided we finished before the customers who were actually organized about their dinner. A really nice table with a sea view, no less. The staff were a little overwhelmed (and I think I even saw one couple being delivered a second set of main courses after their table had been cleared of the first; some sort of serious miscommunication I suppose), but our food was really good (contrary to bad reviews I noticed elsewhere just now). I had a cold crab salad with heaps and heaps of crab, almost more than I could eat; Mrs. Dunce had a tuna steak with green chile pesto [sic]. We did have a dessert (summer fruits thingy) and coffee, but the service had slowed to a crawl and we (or at least I) became quite anxious about getting to the station in time for the train (only one per hour at this time of day). A brisk walk through town got us to the station at the very moment the 8:24 (or so) train arrived (see, I was justified in panicking, especially when people walking ahead of us broke into a run, or when we crossed a bridge and found ourselves on the other side of the station, with a locked gate between us and the platform).

The train was absolutely packed with seaside revellers who had been enjoying the sun at one or more of the aforementioned seaside locations. The fashion of the day seemed to be horribly painful looking sunburns of a traditional English variety. Such bad sunburns that you didn't want to get near them because they were radiating so much heat. Anyway, we stood among the many standing-room-only passengers until our loaded train joined up with an empty one and we could flop into a pleasantly empty carriage. And the trip home passed without incident (unless you consider small children playing, and playing, and replaying mobile phone ringtones to be an incident). All in all, a wonderful day out.

travel

Tuesday, August 01, 2006 3:42:25 PM (GMT Standard Time, UTC+00:00)