Dungeness.

Before you get to the beach at Dungeness on the south coast, you have to drive on to what we discovered is actually a private estate, it's very barren when you first see it, but the open expense of scrub land and marshes are really very beautiful. The mile and a half of shingle is the most unspoilt in Europe.

People live and work here in some of the sweetest little houses and even Buddha has found a peaceful spot.
I really wanted to take more photo's of this house, as it was all black, with very crisp smooth lines and very ultra modern, but the owners were in their garden having a bar-b-que and I didn't want to disturb them, maybe next time I go, I can get some pictures from the front. I do like their little caravan and sneaked this photo.
This is the lovely little cafe right next to the beach and where a miniature train station is. More about that later. The cafe is a great little place and we always call in there. I have been going to Dungeness since my kids were small and we always go to the cafe, they serve good food, make lovely tea and serve a good coffee, the staff are really warm and friendly people.
Here is another little caravan, this one is in the garden of an artist who lives in one of the little houses.
This is one of those little houses that I told you about, although some of them are only one story high a few of them like this one have two stories and the stairs on the left hand lead to a balcony, facing out to the sea.

This round building stands next to the old light and it is where the light house keepers lived, I'm not sure if they still live in there, but the building is occupied.
This is the old light house, the building behind the light house is the nuclear power station at Dungeness. There are two light houses at Dungeness and this one is known as the "Old Light house", it is no longer a working one and in fact you can go in there for a small fee. Once you get to the top, you can look out over the sea and all the scrub land and marshes. You can literally see for miles and on a really clear day you can see right over the English Channel and see France.
We got talking to one of the local artist who lives out there and told us that the reason there are two light houses is because when they built the power station it blocked out the light house and so they had to quickly build a new one.....this maybe one of those sea shanty stories, you know told by the locals to the tourists. Just because they find it funny and because they get sick of answering the same questions.

Dungeness is mostly a nature reserve and Royal Society for the Protection of Birds. You can fish from the beach and also catch crabs there, although I have never found where that part of the beach is. On the shingle itself there are over 300 tpyes of flora and forna, supporting rare spiders, insects and including rare moths and dragonflies.

To find out more about Dungeness and it's surrounding beauty click here

Dungeness