The day started with a short drive to the village of Alfriston nearby. I'd never heard of it before but it was truly such a cute little place, with two lovely half-timber inns - one from the 13th century and one 14th century! We had a wander around before heading off to start the day proper.
The first stop of the day was at Birling Gap, where we parked and went to the National Trust cafe for a cup of tea.
It wasn't the greatest day for the beach - windy and cool. But at least it wasn't raining - we'd seen enough of rain on this trip!! We had a look around then got back in the car and drove to Beachy Head lighthouse, where we parked.
I walked to Beachy Head a little while ago from Cuckmere Haven (in autumn, when the weather was better than now and it was SUMMER!), and the blue skies made the water look the most glorious shades of blue. Unfortunately, the grey skies didn't quite have the same effect, though the water was still remarkably blue. It was cold and blustery on the cliffs so we didn't hang around too long.
The next stop was to get some lunch, then we went to find somewhere to sit and eat it. We ended up driving back towards Alfriston to stop at the Long Man of Wilmington, where we had lunch, surrounded by fields and countryside.
The Long Mand of Wilmington is one of many weird figures cut into the hillsides of the UK, though one of the lesser known ones - there seem to be a lot of horses but only three human figures cut into hillsides. This guy is 72m tall, and there is a lot of dispute regarding when he was built - no one seems to know for sure! At earliest guesses, it could have been built in the neolithic period due to a barrow being nearby. Other estimates put it at over 5000 years old (3480 BC). More recent estimates are between 16th and 17th century. I am quite surprised that no one knows for sure, as those guesses cover a huge expanse of time!
We drove back through Wilmington and I had to stop the car and get out - the village was just SO gorgeous! And I found my dream house, all covered in roses...
We stopped a little further up the road at a village names Firle. This is a very quaint little village that has one of the oldest cricket clubs in the country. The village is mention in the Domesday Book of 1086 and has a long history, including that Virginia Woolf moved there in 1910. It was very pretty, and there were even some people riding old-timey iron bikes... I felt like we'd stepped back in time!
For our last night of camping, we drove to a campsite near East Grinstead. It was a basic set-up, so basic in fact that the amenities block didn't have showers which I didn't think was very good. There's basic, then there's too basic. But anyway, it was sunny and we pitched the tent at the top of the big field and watched the planes coming in to land at Gatwick airport. We managed to dry the tent out finally, and sorted out our last dinner of the trip.