What is it about an oyster festival that took us 100 miles to this seaside town in north east Kent? Strangely enough, not just for the oysters but also a part of England that we seldom visit.
Whitstable is famous for its oysters and its maritime heritage is celebrated during the annual oyster festival in July. It is a week long event, with carnivals, a food festival, and even a fireworks finale. But we deliberately missed the Food Festival over the weekend to stay away from the crowd; nothing is worse than circling around a car park waiting for an empty place. But even during the week, with the school out, there were many families descending on Whitstable to take advantage of an outing to the seaside on a hot summer day.
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Whitstable Harbour
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The Whitstable Harbour is still a working harbour, flanked on one side by what is euphemistically called a shopping village, with all sorts of independent retailers selling hats, kites, trinkets, summer clothing, candles, gifts, etc. Surprisingly, there seemed to be an absence of sea gulls swooping in and out of the harbour, probably because there were no fish being landed at the time.
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Breakwater at Whitstable Beach
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Whitstable Beach
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The Whitstable beach is a long stretch of shingle/sand beach where families sun bathed and a few took the boat out. I could see that a lot of sun bathers were perfectly bronzed and some already showing wizened skin. It does not cease to amaze me how a nation not used to the sun has so much tolerance for the fierce sun rays on a blazing hot summer day.
In the distance is a huge wind farm project on the Kentish Flats, the wind turbines together forming the biggest wind farm in the UK. Is this an eyesore or a thing of beauty? Already, the oyster farmers claim that wind farms attract star fish that eat oysters which eventually will wipe out the oyster industry and damage the tourist industry.
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A bed of oyster shells
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Something I learned on this trip: that empty oyster shells are harvested for baby oysters in their larval stage to attach to, so that they can settle down and go about the business of growing. Why pieces of shell? They are necessary to keep the baby oysters from being enveloped by the muddy bottom of the sea floor, which kills them. In places where oyster populations have fallen, empty oyster shells help to restore oyster populations.
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Beach hut along Tankerton Slopes, Whitstable
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Another sight I came to see are the beach huts. These wooden constructions, often painted in bright jazzy colours, and measuring no more than 10 ft square, are changing hands as much as £20,000+. A peep into the inside of these huts reveal limited furnishings: some shelves for storage, some folded deck chairs, a folded table, maybe a kayak; so the price that these small units command is probably related to the romantic notion that life is a beach: the seaside, the sun, the beers, and a well developed tan.
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Knitted pram, Whitstable High Street
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Knitted bicycle, Whitstable High Street
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The Whitstable high street is lined by all sorts of independent retailers, including a mini market that sells almost everything under the sun. Most of the window dressings were uninspired, but now and then there was a spot of humour. Here, someone had knitted out a pram and a bike, which I found rather amusing.
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Wheelers Oyster Bar, Whitstable
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Sea bass, Whitstable Oyster Bar, probably the best fish dish
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It is only fitting to close this blog by writing a few words about the Wheelers Oyster Bar. This tiny restaurant, famous for its take-away and eat-in sea food, offers the most sublime sea food dishes. It is an unassuming place, rather crowded, but with top-notch sea food that it serves up, it matters not whether there is table cloth,waitresses in uniform, or that one has to pay cash. I also had the most delicious battered oysters, something I have not eaten since I was a child. They truly beat raw oysters, but then we all like food that we grew up with: and as a Chinese, I grew up with cooked rather than raw food.
