Day 59 (17th August 2022)

 I have just finished late lunch / early supper at my last campsite on this most wonderful Germinal CCXXIV Road Trip. As I sat down to start this there was the most impressive rumble of thunder so I suspect I'll have to take cover before I'm finished.

Thanks again to Rachel & Ashook for hosting me and the Alphard for the last two nights. Their life is super stressful at the moment so I am exceedingly grateful to them for fitting me in.

I headed back to Bexhill-on-Sea for one last try at getting a half decent picture of stop #135

ROYAL SOVEREIGN 

OK , so I know it looks like a row of beach huts (which it obviously is) but there is a tiny speck on the horizon between the second and forth huts in the right of the picture...

My sister had been trying to get a last minute boat trip out to sea, even volunteering to come with me despite suffering from truly appalling seasickness, but the cost would be the same as a weeks all inclusive to Lloret de Mar so much like my Bishop's Rock  effort, I had to settle for a distance shot. What is particularly annoying is that I timed this trip so I would be here in August, which was when there always used to be two busy boat trips, one that took you to Beachy Head and the other out to the Royal Sovereign. You can only try your best.

Having already confused people with my picture of the Saxon Shore Way yesterday (where I put the word 'finish' in brakets referring to the path from where it starts to where it ends) I bypassed Hastings and headed in the gloom to stop #136

DUNGENESS 

Now I wanted to take the pic from the top of this impressive beast of a lighthouse, but they now ban any type of backpack, and I didn't want to have both hands full walking up a zillion stairs so instead I stood outside. I also managed to leave my black marker pen behind.

I could have taken a train journey to the next destination which I have written on the back of one of my 7" Carrion copies ... stop #137

ST.MARY'S BAY

but I didn't know how much time it would take to go there and back again to collect the Alphard, and the weather really was starting to look decidedly gray.

Next stop on the Germinal CCXXIV trail was another place that is owned by the MOD and is therefore out of bounds to the likes of me. Stop #138

DYMCHURCH REDOUBT

I could have got a lot closer to be honest but as I was approaching the old Napoleonic Fort, I heard gunfire. A lot of gunfire. I'm so used to seeing those red flags (Donna Nook, for example) but this is the first time in my entire life I've actually heard guns being used. I knew I wasn't in any danger per say, but I suspect someone had already clocked me walking around with my phone on a stick!

Well, that was pretty much it for the penultimate day of Germinal CCXXIV wanderings. As predicted earlier, rain is now falling so I have retreated into the Alphard with a glass of Prosecco to celebrate my last night away from home. 

A demain for the very last Germinal CCXXIV Road Trip day!

Allons-y 

Douglas Germinal CCXXIV Brain over and out