Today was a tourist day so we walked to Rochester and explored the castle. Janet made it to the top in a moment of madness brought on by the sun, which has been unbelievable. The pic below shows just how happy she was to be back on terra firma. Sadly, Janet has had to start the journey home so I am single-handed again until Scotland, when she will join me again.
Rochester was where Charles Dickens lived for a while in later life. He was born in Portsmouth, so naval dockyards must have been his thing. Much of Rochester now lives off his memory and many places have adopted awful names based on the books. We accidentally slipped into a bit of a time and space warp in "Tiny Tim's Tearooms". On the plus side, the tea and cakes were good. Sadly we didn't get a photo and my ability with words is inadequate to describe it fully. You really need to go there.
I got a few pics of London yesterday, which follow. The night before we left, we walked through Wapping and went to the famous Prospect of Whitby pub where pirates used to hang out (literally, as legend claims it was the site if some executions). It was interesting to compare the decline of two major maritime centres: the East End docks, of which Wapping is a part, where money has since flowed in to build luxury apartments a £2Million a pop, and then Chatham, where the navy employed 10,000 people and the docks here have been replaced an "outlet village". Nuff said. Rochester was nicer.
Tomorrow I plan to head north to Essex. Kent has proved to be an interesting experience - wonder how Essex will compare?
Here are the London photos.
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