Away in April 2011 – Day 6 Travel to Birchington-on-sea

Birchington, Margate

Wednesday, 6 April 2011

Good night’s sleep in the main house and breakfast downstairs in the kitchen/ family room cooked on a wood-fired AGA. Lovely house with spacious rooms and high ceilings and large manicured garden is much more comfortable than humble Halfpenny Cottage. Mr and Mrs Ross are a retired couple – village of Wye would be lovely place to retire.

It was a little awkward, but we had woken to a beautiful sun-filled day and we were all trying to be friendly and polite. A call to Mulberry cottages and we were booked in at Smugglers Cottage in pretty village of Birchington for one night with apologies all around.

Disappointed that we wouldn’t get to walk Wye Downs after all, and with expectations of temperatures in the mid 20s, we headed to our new accommodation. Smugglers Cottage is a newly renovated 4 storey terrace on Epple Street, about a 15 minute walk into the village. Friendly owner said that we were their first guests.

After dropping off our bags and looking in all rooms and cupboards, we headed off to Margate.

Parked and wandered down towards old town and had fish and chips with mushy peas across the road from the beach – outside in beautiful sunshine in stark contrast to yesterday’s very cool weather.

Unfortunately the new Turner Modern gallery has not yet opened but we did get a look at the outside. It’s right on the promenade and a large team of workmen are working to complete landscaping and paving. We could see new staff being briefed inside and the shop is all set up!

Walked along the promenade, around the older part of town, then along Margate High Street.

Back to Birchington and a walk to Epple Cove, a short 5 minutes away. We walked a little way along the coast path, then returned to walk into the village where we bought stamps and had refreshing afternoon tea at the Mulberry Tea Rooms, complete with a traditional tea cozied tea pot and delicious homemade apple lattice pie and berry jelly slice.

Now settled back at Smugglers cottage with Anthony enjoying BBC and SE news and prospect of watching the Chelsea game tonight.

We have a long day’s drive ahead of us tomorrow to Yorkshire, via Peterborough to catch up with Anthony’s brother Michael and his wife Jenny.

	Road out of Wye [Map]		The great British take away [Map]
	Margate Harbour [Map]		The new Turner gallery Margate [Map]
	Epple Bay from the coast walk [Map]		Chalk cliffs of Epple Bay from coast walk [Map]
	Afternoon tea complete with tea cozy at Mulberry t [Map]		Mulberry tea rooms, Birchington [Map]
	21 Epple Street – Smuggler’s cottage [Map]		Entrance at back of Smuggler’s cottage [Map]