Whitstable and Hever Castle, Kent UK

There are the rare occasions when London's weather brings enough sunshine to stop us moaning about how we miss the Australian climate, and even provides us with enough incentive to set up the BBQ in our backyard.
The past couple of weeks have been sufficiently sun-kissed and we felt the urge to head out to a number of day trips in Kent. Our first trip was to Whitstable, one of the UK's oyster capitals. The second trip was to Hever Castle to watch a reenactment of a medieval joust - a fun family day out at the childhood home of Anne Boleyn - wife of Henry VIII and mother of Elizabeth I.


BBQ at Home
A short spell of sunshine, a trip to Tesco for beer and meat; and against the odds we actually held a BBQ.

BBQ in the backyard

Whitstable, Kent
A day trip to Whitstable was recommended by Mei's work colleagues as a nicer destination than the famous resort town of Margate that was located further along the Thames Estuary. The reasoning given was that Whitstable would have less groups of rowdy teenagers as the beach was made up of uncomfortable pebble/shale rather than sand.

Whitstable is still an active fishing port

The esplanade lined with oyster shacks

Looking out towards where the Thames meets the sea

There are little fishing huts lining the beach, available for rent

Seafood snack
On arrival at Whitstable, the harbour was a 15 minute walk from the train station and we simply followed a small crowd down some narrow fisherman alleyways to the town centre. Given that it still quite early on a Sunday morning, our first thoughts were for coffee. We discovered a small market lane next to the fishing port where oysters and tubs of whelks and crayfish tails were available for a few pounds.

The Fish Market

Crayfish and whelks

Picnic on the beach
Realizing that we couldn't eat just shellfish for the entire day, we stopped off at a small deli to buy up a picnic lunch. The collection of food that we ended up with included tomato and cheese quiche, apple turnover, a block of cheese and cured meat.

Picnic lunch

The beach starts to fill up

Lazing around listening to music

Grilled seafood
After indulging in 2 hours of Vitamin D and staring at rocks, we ate an early dinner at a small restaurant that was doing big business shucking oysters, serving grilled lobsters (at £15 for a whole one with chips) and bottles of local raspberry wheat beer.

Watching the oysters getting shucked

Grilled lobster

Local wheat beer

Wheat beer and lobster - yum

Ice-cream and Raspberry BeerA short walk around town kept us occupied for a bit longer before we found some tasty oysters and yet another pub for more raspberry wheat beer and an ice-cream before heading back home to London.

Tasty oysters

And more beer

Hever Castle
Travelling to Hever Castle is quite straight forward from London, simply a train from London Bridge and then a 20 minute walk to the castle grounds. It should be noted that country roads sometimes lack footpaths so we were on constant watch for cars speeding around corners and thorny blackberry bushes. Hever is also a blackspot for mobile phone coverage so it is helpful to have an offline copy of the local map.

Outside the Castle

On the castle drawbridge

Jousting Festival
We were interested in visiting the castle as it was hosting a medieval jousting tournament - a popular activity at castles throughout the UK in summer. Seeing knights on horseback was on Olie's to do list and the show was quite entertaining.

The noticeboard outlining the day's timetable

The knights parade in to collect the King and Queen

Getting ready for the show

The knights make their introductions

Our short video of the hand-to-hand combat and jousting.

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