Day 6 - Quinlan Great UK Adventure

London to Dover

A great motorcycle adventure doesn't mean much without a motorcycle. So we jumped on a train and headed about 20 miles southwest to the town of Woking, where we'd arranged to rent our ride for the next week.

Then headed south east down the road toward Canterbury and Dover. 

Even though we'd been in England for 6 days at that point, and had had to remind ourselves over and over to "stay left, look right". Getting on a motorcycle and getting comfortable with driving on the left, takes a while.

We made it to Canterbury at midday and spent quite a while wandering through the church,

 and the spot where Thomas Becket (AKA St. Thomas of Canterbury) was murdered in 1170.

Down to the catacombs and some pretty funky sarcophagi. 

Poor dog. Hope he wasn't really entombed with Edward II.

Since we know Thomas Becket was killed in the church in the 12th century, it was interesting to find out that there was first a church on this site in 597 and the main structure of the current building was built around 1075. 

Just how many people had walked up these steps in the ensuing 1000 years?

Side Note: Be sure you know what the street markings mean when you park in Canterbury. Apparently a double yellow line means you have to have an official pass to park there, even if you are dumb Americans on a motorcycle.

We rode south to Dover and Sean got his first glimpse of the famous White Cliffs of Dover (bucket list item 387. Check!). 

Dover's a lovely town and not too crowded. 

But...while there were plenty of places to sit and drink, all the pubs and restaurants 1) had the cook call in sick so they weren't serving food or 2) the tables were booked the entire night 3) had a water main break in the kitchen and couldn't cook anything or 4) the kitchen was just closed with no explanation.

Seriously. There was no food to be had in Dover. (I'm sure there was a joke about eating Dover Sole in there somewhere, but I was too hungry and tired to come up with it).

We eventually found a table at an Italian cafe and at least got some food in us, only to find out that the White Cliff boat tour we were supposed to take the next morning had been cancelled because of the high winds in the area. 

It couldn't be helped, but we were seriously bummed. We ended up back at The White Horse, one of the first pubs we visited that day, and ended up making friends with the owners Stu and Jules. 

It's definitely a "we'll be back" kind of place and hopefully the next time, we'll have mountains of fish and chips to eat.

Fun fact - we all know gas prices have been high here this summer, but in Great Britain, the prices ranged from £1.899 per litre to £2.059 per litre.

Some quick math in my head said that was around $12.00 a gallon. Glad we were on a motorcycle!