4 min read

Shelli’s 40th – Day 2

Day 2 Of The Birthday Celebrations

We had a surprisingly comfortable night’s sleep in out bunk. Neither of us cracked our head on the ceiling, which was a miracle considering exactly how high the bunk was to the ceiling of our room!

We didn’t exactly rush up, getting our breakfast after most of the other guests had finished theirs. I have to say, the breakfast was amazing! Top marks to the chef!

Fed and watered, and with a rough plan of where we were going to walk for the day, we headed out of the door into the day’s wonderful weather. It was almost like a summer’s day outside, with the sun shining in a perfectly blue sky.

Heading in the opposite direction to the evening before, we made our way along the South Downs Way to the Birling Gap and the Seven Sisters.

We took the old looking metal stairs down to the beach, sat down, and took in the beautiful scenery around us. It really was rather breathtaking looking along the white cliffs, with the blue sky and blue sea.

After spending some time throwing stones into the water, we made our way back up to the National Trust centre to have a look round the shop and have a drink and a snack before heading off again.

As I said, it was like a summer’s day and already I could feel the heat of the sun on my head. Having forgotten to pack my sun hat – it was April remember – I bought a baseball cap to make sure I didn’t burn.

Break over with we carried on along the South Downs Way, eventually turning in land towards Friston, taking a much quieter path compared to the South Downs Way; there were lots of people out enjoying the weather.

At the A259 we headed down to East Dean and the hunt for somewhere to have something for lunch, something that turned out to be not as easy as we thought it would be.

The weather really had brought everyone out, and when we got to the village green with a few restaurants and the Tiger Inn pub, the place was absolutely rammed!

We managed to get a table inside the Tiger Inn, ordered a pint, and enquired about food. There was going to be a long wait but that wasn’t a problem considering we had nothing to rush back for and neither of us had to drive anywhere later. So, we sat and had a couple more drinks while we waited for our food to arrive.

The food was lovely and the beer was great, and based on that we booked a table for dinner and made our way back to Belle Toute Lighthouse.

When we got to the bottom of the hill below the lighthouse, instead of walking round the road to take the slightly less steep path up, we decided (foolishly?) to take the direct route up. Boy was it steep!

It had been a really lovely day’s walking in the sunshine, topped off with another walk back to East Dean in the evening for dinner and more drinks. Oh, and the walk back of course!

Photos

Route Details

If you’re interested you can download the KML file and/or GPX file of the plotted route. Please be aware though that the route was hand-plotted and so may not be 100% accurate.

Route Map

Elevation Details

Start Elavation (m) End Elavation (m) Max Elevation (m) Min Elevation (m) Total Climb (m) Total Descent (m) Climbs on Route
23 23 114 2 300 -300 1

Climb Details

Rating Start Point (miles) End Point (miles) Length (miles) Start Elevation (m) End Elevation (m) Average Grade
5 1.39 2.98 1.59 9 103 4.0%

More information about climb ratings can be found at Map My Walk.