The Capers of Cilla
- July 2026

Hola amigos,
Mini break time this month, bravo I love my van adventures! And this month was a first for me at St Helens Duver on the other side of the island. It's National Trust land and is dog friendly all year. We parked the van up at Nodes Point and everything is walkable, the local pub, the beach and cafe. The Duver is pretty safe for dogs as little traffic, there are rock pools at low tide and mini sand dunes to zoom around on the point. Just be careful jumping the groins though as the sea level is different on each... and I may have had a swim without wanting, no muy bien there!

The history of St Helens Duver area stretches back thousands of years and it’s been inhabited since at least the Old Stone Age. The Old Church of St Helens shows this continued at the same site right through to the 17th century. The area was also an ideal spot for smugglers to operate in secret.

One of the area’s most famous names belongs to a smuggler, Dickie Dawes. Fisherman by day, he also smuggled past the customs men through a narrow channel known as 'Dickie Dawes Gut' to store his contraband of brandy, silk and tobacco. The booty would often be hidden beneath graves in the churchyard of St Helens Old Church before being brought inland along secret passages believed to lead to the Priory and village. Being a renegade kind of pupster I like the sound of Dickie Dawes!!
Right off to smuggle some gravy bones across the kitchen to my bed,
Cills the buccaneer x

Good capers:
live crabs, rock pools, crab sandwiches

Bad capers:
slippery seaweed, unexpected sea levels, swimming