Living in London without a car can sometimes be really frustrating. Lots of places are easy to get to from London, but not when you have to rely on public transport, which can then be really hard, slow and expensive. I'd wanted to go to Seven Sisters to see the white cliffs for ages, but couldn't work out a way to get there. Then one day I was looking on Google maps and noticed there was a route from Brighton to the Seven Sisters park via the bus! So I bought a train ticket to Brighton, then jumped on the hour-long bus along the coast to the Seven Sisters Country Park, where I got off.
Cuckmere Haven is the first stop you walk to when you get off the bus. It's a wetlands area that is full of bird life, so definitely of interest to anyone that considers themselves a twitcher.
Seven Sisters is apparently named because there were seven sisters who each had a house in the valleys of the hills from Cuckmere Haven to Birling Gap. Other stories say it's named after the seven hills. Either way, the coast path between them was HILLY. I'd read somewhere that this coast path was easy. Yes, it's an easy walk if you think about it... its on grass, there's not too many obstacles... but you are never on a flat, always either going up or going down. It was hard work!
I had a look around Cuckmere Haven before setting off. It was really pretty, the pebble beach and the huge white cliffs behind it.
Then I slogged my way up the hill to start the coast path walk. I stopped to change lenses and look back over Cuckmere Haven. You can see the wetland area in the photo below.
From there it was onwards along the undulating path. It's lucky the views were good or I might have bailed!
I made it to Birling Gap, which is the end of the Seven Sisters and also a National Trust place, and popped into the cafe there to have a cream tea. Birling Gap is apparently also a place where people go to the beach, as there were several families out on the pebbles. Maybe I'm a snob because I am Australian and we have mostly sandy beaches, but I can't imagine lying on stones would be all that comfortable!
After my scone and clotted cream, it was time to head on again. This time, I was aiming for Beachy Head, quite a well known and picturesque lighthouse. But first I had a look at the Belle Tout Lighthouse, below, a decommissioned lighthouse that is now apparently used as a B&B. Fun fact: in 1999, the 850 tonne lighthouse was picked up and moved 17 metres in one piece away from the cliff edge! Now that's a feat of engineering!
I kept on walking, admiring the views of the beautiful blue sea when I came to the Beachy Head lighthouse. It really does look awesome against the white cliffs and blue sea; I can see why it's such an Instagrammable location.
There was only more of the same on the walk to Beachy Head to Eastbourne, except there were some people gliding off the cliffs and over the water in the fairly windy weather. They were fun to watch for a bit but it was a long trip home so I walked onwards to the bus stop, which wasn't quite in Eastbourne but on one of the roads leading out. I travelled on it all the way to Brighton then caught the over 1 hour long train back to West Hampstead. What an adventure!