Day: 159 12/4/96 Bexhill to Rye

Distance: 30 km ( 18.6 miles)    Total Distance:    1989.8 miles

I had been unsure looking at the map of how much I would be able to keep to the coast between Bexhill and Hastings.  It turned out that I need not have been apprehensive.  The path went parallel to the railway for much of the time and at one stage going over a rocky out crop and then past a major sewage development which seems to be all the rage at these times of tightening EC water regulations.  The west part of Hastings is nothing to write home about - a couple of old marinas and old Victorian housing. 

Hastings itself however was very different.  Large by any seaside town standards, crowded and well maintained.  I crossed the very busy promenade road to ask at the Tourist Information Centre about buses from Rye back to Bexhill.  They looked at me as if I had two heads since Rye was in a different county and how would they be expected to know something like that. 

The path out of Hastings was up narrow steps hidden amongst the houses.  A little train could have saved me the time but completely outside my rules!  From Hastings to Failight Cave is a walk to be recommended,  in particular after all the built up areas of the previous couple of days.  Finding ones way through the wealthy village of Fairlight Cave is a bit of a challenge particularly when there have been cliff falls necessitating diversions through the village itself.

The rest of the walk was on the flat - very flat! To Winchelsea Beach I walked on a sea defence, looking down on the pebbles on the seaward side and the marshes on the landward side.  Beyond Winchelsea I walked on the beach itself since most of it was firm sand.  I caught myself out towards the end because a river going across the beach meant I had to backtrack a bit .  Although the River Rother was narrow there was no chance of wading across it - it is quite substantial, so I had to walk inland to Rye.  

Again there is not much to recommend this section.  Some bits of Rye Harbour looked nice but beyond that I had to keep to the road along an industrial estate.  Once I crossed the Military Canal, I was on the main road back to Bexhill.  I saw a bus stop close by and only had a short wait for a bus.  The journey back was quite pleasant through some scenic villages including Winchelsea, much nicer than the coast for once. 

I then went to the Youth Hostel outside Hastings - a nice old house in its own grounds, but the showers were appalling.  They had no record of my booking but had room anyway.  I went into Hastings and had a Kentucky Chicken take away.  On my return I got talking to another walker.  It turned out he studied the same topic as I had done at Exeter in the same year I did - if I had accepted the Exeter offer instead of the Swansea offer we would have been in the same year.  We went to the local pub - not the first one we tried, since that one had closed down.  The hostel was locked up when we came back but I went around the back where the wardens were still up - I should think so, because it still was not 11 o’clock.

Day: 158 12/4/96 Seaford to Bexhill

Distance: 30 km ( 18.6 miles)    Total Distance:    1972.4 miles

I had chocolate cake for breakfast in the Youth Hostel, which bought a few comments from the other healthy eating hostelers.  I told the Australian girl who had just finished her doctors exams, about the cliff top walk I did yesterday evening and where the Severn Sisters walk was.  I then set off and parked the car in the same pub car park as yesterday and walked down the east bank of the River Cuckmere to the sea.  It was a quiet still misty morning.  A group of workers with a JCB were repairing the path at the start of the climb up the first cliff which meant a slight tour inland to get back on the path. 

The Severn Sisters turned out to be not too strenuous and I took it fairly easy.  I was disappointed that it was so misty because there was no view from the tops of the cliffs.  Burling Gap has a hotel and not a lot else but a good place to stop and eat a bar of chocolate.  There were a few more people up the top of Beachy Head itself, all of us wondering where the summit was.  The sound of the traffic on the nearby road was a little eerie.  I got a little lost on the way down I think and took the path on the landward side. 

I had a rest when I got to the first civilisation and treated myself to the other piece of chocolate cake - this is walking how it should be.  I ate it whilst watching a group of foreign school children being unloaded from a coach and hump their suitcases across a road for a stay at a private school.  There was soon a path down onto the promenade all the way to Eastbourne where it started to drizzle, so I decided it was dinner time and went into a Fish and Chip restaurant - a F&C shop but with waiters in black suites - the English seaside at its best!

The afternoon walk to Bexhill was none to glamorous:  promenade, rough ground and flat boring roads.  The worst part was in an area marked Crumbles on the map and signified as waste ground, but in reality was a new housing development where I found it impossible to keep to the sea and was forced along the new estate, eventually getting trapped and having to ask a workman if I would go under a barrier to make my escape back to the coast.  Around a couple of lagoons and I was back where I wanted to be - well almost, I could have done with a path instead of shingle to walk on.  Some people are never happy eh. 

After leaving Pevansy Bay I got onto a minor road and followed it to Bexhill.  It passed through Norman’s Bay a village without much character and a host of ramshackle cottages / chalets. The suburbs of Bexhill were different however - affluent and smart.  I had a fair wait for a bus back so asked in the Tourist Information Office which was in the theatre.  They were good enough to give me a map.

I got the bus back and that evening ate again in the pub where I had parked and stayed in the Youth Hostel in Alfriston again - with the inevitable party of foreign school children. 

Day: 157 11/4/96 Brighton to Seaford

Distance: 26 km ( 16.2 miles)    Total Distance:    1953.8 miles

I dropped the family off at Birmingham Airport for their holiday in Ireland and then drove myself down the South coast.  I'd booked into the Youth Hostel in Alfreston, so I knew where I wanted to finish the walk for the day.  I parked in the pub car park and then caught the bus without too much delay into Brighton. There was however a delay on the bus because it took a very long time and went inland at one stage to Lewes instead of just along the coast.  A very frustrating start to the day.  Even worse was the fact that I failed to get off at the right spot even though the driver promised to tell me when I was close to the pier. This meant a walk back through the very busy shopping centre of Brighton.  It was good to get going eventually.  I was hoping this was going the be a bit greener than the previous weekends walk back in January.

Another frustration appeared after the first hour.  I had walked though the new harbor complex only to find there was no exit on the far side back onto the Undercliff path.  It was not so much blocked by a water inlet, just what seemed to be the bloody mindedness of the yacht club.  A fence, barbed wire and a large drop appeared to mean that I would have to backtrack a mile.  After standing on top of a breakwater, looking at the drop onto the beach, for what seemed like a long time I decided to give jumping it a go - or actually lowering myself on the weathered piece of rope and then letting go and hoping for the best. I turned out not to be too great a fall and I was relieved.  The Undercliff path is talked about a lot in Brighton, but is actually another concrete monstrosity. Never mind, if it was not there it would mean a long walk on the road I suppose. 

The path ran out without much warning and I had to backtrack a little to get back up onto the cliffs at Saltdean.  I crossed the main road briefly to post some letters off was then onto the cliff top path.  Around Peachaven, the path followed the end of streets of bungalows on the low cliffs.  Around the Harbour Heights area of Newhaven the scenery changed to more green heathland before I saw a path down towards the breakwater.  A cafe nestled in the wasteland near the breakwater so I stopped for a cup of tea, the silence only broken by the sound of game machines.  People seemed to be drifting out from work for an early evening stroll.

The road into Newhaven took me past a marina and then over a swing bridge into Newhaven town itself.  Over the railway, my route veered back towards the sea. I decided to carry on at least until Seaford even though evening was approaching.  The back streets soon changed into a more industrial scene, the car park for the ferry and then over the railway again and into waste ground towards Seaford.  I picked up speed determined to walk back to where I had left the car rather than catch a bus back.  Out of Seaford the path went up onto the cliffs again and very pleasant it was too in the evening sun.  At one stage there was a large number of rabbits out and the scurried back into their burrows when I approached.

I was worried what the path up the banks of the Cuckmere River would be tricky in the failing light but it was reasonable.  Rather than go out again once I was in the Youth Hostel in Alfreston later, I ate in the pub where I had left the car - only spoil by the fact that the only seat free was outside the gents toilet and smelt like it.  Finding the Youth Hostel in the dark was a little tricky.  It was a good hostel in an old building with a dorm overlooking the valley.

Day: 156 21/1/96 Worthing to Brighton

Weather:  Cold

Distance: 21 km ( 13 miles)    Total Distance:    1937.6 miles

I had breakfast with the Richards’s themselves.  Mike thanked me because it was only when guests were staying did he have a cooked breakfast.  Glad to be of service Mike!

It was a finer day weather-wise than yesterday though it was still cold and windy.  Since it was so early, I managed to find a place to park on one of the side roads very easily - it was just a case of deciding which road would be safe.  Most of the day's walk seemed to be along concrete of one sort or another, much of it promenade. The wind and wearing a tight hat was giving me a headache, so I stopped and took a couple of paracetamol.  Perhaps the most pleasurable bit was between Lancing and Shoreham where the path left the road and there was a series of lakes on the inside of the path and the sea on the outside. 

At Shoreham-by-Sea the path disappeared and it was a case of walking on the suburban streets - the advantage being that it was out of the cold head wind.  I walked as far as I could along this little peninsular before turning the corner and heading back - swapping housing for light industrial units. 

I was lucky to find the footbridge took me back to the mainland, as it were, and then along the busy and narrow main road of what I presume was Shoreham itself past B&Q, car garages and other less than interesting places.   An even more lucky break was the pontoon type bridge back towards the sea, again saving me what would have been a long detour around the port.  There were hundreds of purple ribbons tied to a chain fence in the town - a sign of the battle to stop veal calf exports to the continent that had been fought and I think won the previous winter. 

This was real industrial dockland stuff now, and what looked to be a disused power station.  Near the harbor entry a number of fishermen huddled in a cafe but it did not look very appealing so I took to the concrete again towards Hove.  Once off the docks and onto the promenade again, I stopped in a cafe - a rather ramshackle type building on the middle of a green patch just back from the shore.  It was hard to believe but it seemed people were actually coming in for their Sunday lunch.

Eventually, through the poor visibility, the piers of Brighton appeared. The West Pier was a weird site, now derelict and not joined to the beach and obviously visited by graffiti artists periodically. It was strange because the seafront itself was well kept and lots of expensive hotels overlooked this sight.

The Palace Pier was in much better condition and even in the middle of winter doing good business. I stopped here, well in fact went on a bit to find a bus stop, but ended up doing a little figure of eight and catching the bus on the road perpendicular to the pier.  Once back I at cat I drove home to Coventry after a windswept weekend away! 

Day: 155 20/1/96 Bognor Regis to Worthing

Weather:  Windy and cold

Distance: 25 km ( 15.5 miles)    Total Distance:    1924.6 miles

The forecast was dry so I decided late to have a weekend walking.  What I had not realised was that the forecast was also cold and windy -  very cold and very windy! 

I drove down from Coventry early and parked in a side street and had a cup of tea from the flask I had bought with me.  I then set off soon to realise that I was in for a battle!  The wind was sending waves crashing onto the promenade at Bognor and it was a case of wave dodging to get around some obstacles such as buildings.  I was well wrapped up but it still felt cold.  I stopped at a telephone box in Bognor and telephoned the B&B I had stopped last Autumn.  They were not there but his mother was and she said it would be OK to stay.

At Middleton-on-Sea my way was blocked because there was no promenade and the tide was right in preventing me from walking along the beach.  The trek inland did however give me a brake from the wind for a while.  I decided not to take the first path back down to the seafront since it was not evident that I would get anywhere and may end up backtracking again.

Eventually the path led through a new housing development and back to the sea.  Beyond that there was a mixture of official footpath and track to walk along though much of it was in a poor condition.

Up into Littlehampton was a usual mix of marinas and housing.  I stopped on the far side of the River Run as it appeared fairly sheltered before getting back down onto the beach. 

The remainder of the walk was along promenades - Sussex already seems a concrete county. 

After getting the bus back to Bognor I was pretty tired, phoned home, bought a large packet of biscuits and a couple of cans of beer and went to the Richards B&B.  I was so tired that night that I did not feel like going out, so stayed in with a packet of biscuits!