Dover, England

We were in Dover from Friday September 26 to Sunday September 28, 2025.

We explored the town on Friday afternoon a little, then checked into the Inn around 3pm, and then took a grassy hiking trail along the top of the cliffs west of town. We walked for maybe an hour before turning around. We wanted to get back before it got dark.



Friday September 27, 2025.

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Downtown Dover

Dover is a port town, located 21 miles/33 km from France. The white chalk cliffs and Dover Castle are a draw for tourists. Archaeological finds have shown the area was occupied in the Stone Age and the Iron Age. The area feels a little depressed these days with empty stores and house prices that seemed fairly low. A train line links it to London. We wantered around waterfront area while we waited for check-in time and walked around the Prince of Wales Pier. We saw a lot of ferries coming and going.

The Guardian of Forever

In the center of downtown Dover, they had a sort of sculpture / fountain / installation. Apparently it is just a few years old (as of 2025) and has no fucking name! It is only referred to as “a water feature.” I saw one reference to the Stargate Fountain but that seems like just a one-off. It could be a sort of Time Tunnel or similar portal. But really, it reminds me of the Guardian of Forever in the original series Star Trek episode City on the Edge of Forever. (I'd provide a link to the Guardian or the episode but anything I found was way too long.

This sculpture has a series of rings with mist spraying through them. Depending on the wind that day, anything beyond the second ring was pretty obscurred. I wanted to get a series of pictures of me going through it that I could turn into an animated GIF, as a reference to any of Dr. McCoy, Mr. Spock, or Captain Kirk coming back through the Guardian's portal.

Because of various factors, this was the best I could do. There was a kid who was riding his bike through it. I had to wait for him to get out of the frame and watch me act like a dork (it comes naturally). I didn't want to have to do it more than 3 times (once was explaining my artistic vision, once was a version with a bad camera angle, and then this one). Also the sound of the mist spraying made it hard to tell if my friend who was operating the camera had actually told me to start.

I didn't feel like using Photoshop to add the glow around the edge of the circle and didn't feel like spending the time trying to animate the mist, stealing it from various in-between pictures. Also, after spending 5 or 10 minutes trying to find an example of a GIF with a clip of someone coming out of of the Guardian of Forever from the original show, I had to admit defeat. Too much crap clogging the search engines. Anyway, here is my recreation of that moment without special effects.

So enjoy this, for what it's worth (which is not much, I know).

White Cliffs of Dover

After checking-in and dropping off our stuff, we decided to walk along a grassy path on top of the cliffs to the west of town. We had a few hours before sunset, so we headed out. The first part was walking on the sidewalk alongside the highway (A20) which was packed with a lot of trucks ("lorries") spewing a lot of fumes, and wasn't super-pleasant at times. But then the trails up and down the hills was far enough away from the trucks (and maybe there was a seabreeze) so the air become less noxious. There was a fence to limit people from wandering to the drop-off of where the grass ends and the cliffs and plummeting beging (shortly followed by death).

There were Exmoore ponies that were grazing in one part of the hills. They weren't scared of us, but they didn't seem super friendly either. I assume they're used to people herding them around a bit, but most of the time they're on their own, so people aren't their buddies.

We went up and down 2 or 3 of the hills and then decided it was time to head back as it would get dark in a little over an hour. The trip back was uneventful. The views were impressive.

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