Day: 161 22/6/96 Hythe to Dover

Weather:  fine

Distance: 25.5 km ( 15.8 miles)    Total Distance:   2030.5 miles

This was an eventful day - full of incidents.  The first was not too pleasant when I was driving down early in the morning.  I was almost in Hythe when I made a mistake and cut across another car on a difficult junction. The two young men in the other car were not too pleased to say the least. 

I found where I had stopped walking last time and parked the car off the main road in a quiet street and started walking, cutting trough a park and some housing down to the beach.  Hythe front did not look too bad a place.  I walked past an area where they were busy reclaiming the beach by pumping up pebbles from the sea bed using a large suction device on a ship and pumping them back onto the beach.  It was evident that the beach had worn away over the years leaving a very large drop off the promenade.

Just before coming into Folkestone I stopped at a cafe next to the sea.  The price of things was high and I almost changed my mind however when the £1.20 flapjack arrived it was very nice - warm and topped with grated orange peel. No wonder the sparrows had become so tame - not that they had any of mine.  A number of us were sat there looking out to sea when someone spotted a canoe coming closer to the shore without apparently anyone in it.  As it came closer however it was apparent that it was being pulled along by a swimmer.  The Coast Guards arrived soon after, siren going but the swimmer was strong and needed no help in getting to the shore or lifting the canoe out of the water.  How he came to end up in the water without a paddle, a long way from anywhere, I am not sure.

Folkestone was bustling and after making one failed attempt to get into it (the way via the beach onto the pier blocked) I backtracked and went in via a fun fair.  People were eating sea food at a rate of knots.  Out of Folkestone the road climbed up a hill and I then cut down to the beach again and soon picked up a pathway at the bottom of the cliffs.  A couple of young lads on a motorbike sped past and hit my hand in the process. I am still nor sure whether it was on purpose or whether their apology was heart-felt.

After the path ended it was back onto the pebbles.  I passed a very strange shack at the bottom of the cliffs, surrounded by barbed wire complete with barking dog and weird looking character.  It was then past a sign saying “no entry - nature reserve not yet open, vegetation still growing” or words to that effect. As it appeared the way ahead was a concrete monstrosity I saw little hope of any vegetation ever growing so went ahead anyway.  It was quiet to the point of being eerie. 

At the Dover end of this it became apparent what was going on. This was reclaimed land built as part of the channel tunnel development recently opened.  The service tunnel entered underground at this point.  The tide had come in meaning that my way forward was now blocked and the way into the chunnel service tunnel, which included a small tunnel through the cliffs to Dover was surrounded by fences and cameras.  This meant I had to backtrack all the way to the no entry sign which should have read “no entry - there is no way out”! 

I was very worried that I would have to backtrack even further in order to get up the cliff but I spotted a narrow steep path going up Abbots Cliff which appeared very seldom used.  Although I feared that it was now unusable because of a cliff fall I decided to chance it anyway.  So steep was it that it needed to use the ropes present for long stretches.  Fortunately it did lead to the cliff top.  By the time I got there my heart was pounding - I don’t like the sight of sheer drops for such long periods.

The cliff top walk into Dover was very nice and used by mountain bikers.  The decent into Dover was down a steep path, over a railway bridge and along a beach.  I ended up in a dock area just before three o’clock so decided to watch the European Championship match between England and Spain on the TV in a pub full of fisherman.  I had a roll and a couple of pints of Guinness but only stayed till the end of normal time.  England eventually won on penalties.  The rest of my walk into Dover was along  busy main roads.  I tried to catch a bus to Folkestone on the main road but a driver of a little bus that did stop told me the bus I wanted did not come that way and I would have to go into Dover itself.  I had a fair wait for a bus there and in Folkestone bus station too . 

I stayed in Canterbury YHA (plus the usual contingent of school children - Gibraltan this time!) on the outskirts of the city, since Dover YHA was full.  I walked into Canterbury that night  but failed to find anywhere nice to eat so had a meal in McDonald's.

Day: 160 13/4/96 Rye to Hythe

Distance: 40 km ( 24.9 miles)    Total Distance:   2014.7 miles

I believe this was the longest days walk I had done to date, not made any easier by a couple of misunderstandings concerning buses at the end.

I parked in a car park belonging to some flats just outside Rye. The first section of the walk was around the outskirts of Rye.  I probably did not see the best bits taking this route but it looked a good place to revisit at some stage.  Once over the bridge I went along the banks of the Rother, mainly walking on sea defences etc.  This side of the river was a lot more picturesque.  There was no footpath marked at times but it was still all apparently accessible. 

Once off the dunes it was onto Camber sands, which was not very busy to say the least.  I did not see much of Camber at all, the path did not go up until after the village.  After a trek along the road it was into Lydd Firing Ranges - what a desolate area that was. Rather than taking the shingle front I took a roadway instead which eventually petered out and seemed to leave me in the middle of a danger area.  I quickly made my escape towards  the sea and from then on along the shingle all the way to Dungeness Power Station.  This shingle front seemed to go on for ever and it was difficult and painful walking.  The first sign of life was sea anglers fishing off the shingle near the power station - not the sea anglers ever show any signs of life - they choose to ignore you if they possible can. 

I stopped in the station cafe at Dungeness surrounded by a nuclear power station, a couple of lighthouses a miniature railway and a collection of shacks where people had for some reason chosen to live amongst the desolation.  The shingle bank by the sea northwards looked private so I kept to the road which was much easier walking.  The housing gradually became more civilised, and the bungalows went on for mile after mile.

I got to St Mary’s Bay in reasonable shape considering the distance I had come already.  I was my last day of this trip so after finding out from an elderly couple waiting at a bus stop that the next bus going in the direction I wanted was not for another hour or so I decided to run myself into the ground and head towards Hythe or at least as far as I could get before the bus came.  The path was on the sea wall as far as Hythe Ranges.  There was no need for red flags, I could hear the sound of rifle fire from far away.  I headed inland and eventually came to a bus stop in an exhausted state near Palmarsh on the outside of Hythe.

The bus eventually came but the diver said he only went as far as New Romney on a Sunday and not to Rye.  Now why I did not get on and go to New Romney I’m not quite sure - I should have.  Instead I declined his offer and started hitching. It was an awful place to hitch and I had to walk all the way back to  Dymchurch to get a place anywhere near decent.  I hitched on the way out of the village and a man who was just pulling out stopped and gave me a life as far as Brenzett roundabout, near a Little Chef. 

It was starting to get dark and those cars that were coming off at my exit on the roundabout were travelling fast.  However, after not too long a wait a man drove out of the Little Chef car park and stopped for me and asked where I was going.  Rye seemed OK with him so I jumped in.  On inquiring he told me he was due to go in the other direction until he saw me hitching.  Things got even stranger when he told me how careful one had to be hitching, people getting raped and wrongly accused.  The one good thing was that he was driving so slowly I could have jumped out if I had wanted to anyway.  I was glad to get back to the car and drive home.

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.