Big White Cliffs Fall

This has been coming for weeks. The shingle has been shifted by storm after storm and the hydraulic power of the waves on big tides is ferocious. The trainline from Dover to upcountry is washed out for months. And this morning we saw this big fall in the Bay.

The size of the chunk of chalk by the bloke is fantastic, the summer house on top is suddenly looking very exposed, and the fulmar at the top of the pic is looking for a new bloody home.

This is a pretty big fall by the Bay standards. P and M who've lived here since the war say there have been more falls in the last six years than the previous thirty.

M told the story of their shrimping trips under the cliffs. One day a fall occurred when they were down there. P, always out in front on the long pull back from the Lighthouse Gullies, turned round at the sound of the rumble and could only see a huge cloud of chalk dust.  M appeared out of it ghost-like and unharmed.

There is more to come down (this fall happened on Wednesday). You can see it hanging there waiting for gravity, frost, rain, chance to do their work. And yet every day there are people  mucking about right underneath it.

I've walked this way many times heaving back all manner of 'interesting' finds. Won't be doing that for a while. (Extra is that big block and bloke for scale).