Stage 8 means that we are tantalizingly close to finishing the South Downs Way westward: 88 miles of the 100-mile long trek completed by the end of this walk.
In all our walking thus far, we've seen plenty of sunshine but never seen the South Downs dressed for midsummer as we did last weekend, on Sunday 9th July 2023. This was the walk of wildlife: the flora and fauna of Sussex in summertime on full display from Swanborough Hill, through Southease to the sea.
There were snails underfoot and butterflies galore, and wild flowers everywhere: poppies and heather, knapweed and mugwort, cowslip and clover, thistle and agrimony, bindweed and ragwort. It was a riot of colour, and snapshots from my phone don't do it justice at all.
The song of the skylark was our anthem throughout the day.
It sounds idyllic. And it almost was. Except there were cows. And there was a bit of rain. And a lot of hills. I know I shouldn't be surprised by the hills by now, but there we are.
Since we knew today's would be a shorter walk than some legs (only around 10.5 miles), and because we knew that we had the advantage of a long day, we left slightly later than on previous occasions. Kingston is around a 45 minute drive away from home, so after a leisurely meeting, we didn't actually start walking until about 8.45am. And it was quite the climb from Kingston village back up to the South Downs Way. (Did I mention hills?)
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| Poppies everywhere |
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| Colour amongst the cornstalks |
Once again we were lucky with the weather. This time we were lucky in the sense that the day was cloudy and cool rather than the humid with the heat of recent days and weeks. The temperate clime was much more conducive to walking, even if we had to shelter from the rain for a while beneath the trees at Mill Hill. There was a lovely bench there, too, if only we'd had dryer weather at that point. Still, it was nice to admire. We love a bench.
Not only were the Downs glorious in their summer clothing, this particular stage also offered a very varied walk with scenery changing all the time. There were steep escarpments, wide fields, seascapes, particularly dramatic views as we came by Newhaven Harbour and Seaford Head, villages, narrow lanes, farmland.
As always, we were grounded and refreshed by the experience of walking, buoyed by talk, awed by the beauty of our county. It is a madly busy time as we approach the end of the school year. Our daughters are through their GCSEs and awaiting results. We talked about their prom. Home improvements. New patio areas. Our sons had sporting achievements and endeavours to be discussed. We talked bout gender identity. About ageing in-laws. Hospital appointments. My bathroom saga. As ever, the world was put to rights.
There was a poignancy in knowing that we were crossing the River Ouse, not far from where one of my literary heroes, Virginia Woolf, filled her overcoat pockets with stones and walked in to the water on March 28, 1941.
It was something of a novelty to cross a level crossing at Southease.
A rare example of a sign with actual directions on it, reminds me that another reason this was a good walk was because we didn't get lost. Not once. My map-reading skills have definitely improved. (It hasn't stopped our longer-term plan to guerrilla signpost the trickier bits of the route.)
Another feature of this particular walk was the perfectly timed Youth Hostel stop mid-morning. YHA South Downs is right on the way. Coffee, cake, toilets, a water tap all appeared just as the right time for a change.
We both quite enjoyed the wall art at the hostel. Boots with utterly destroyed souls. People on social media keep writing about how punishing the South Downs Way is underfoot. Perhaps because we are having longish gaps between walks we've been spared much of that.
In a rare administrative error, Strictly Lady Lloyd failed on the granola-bar front, so buttery flapjacks it was. ('Failed' is perhaps a little strong. But they've become a feature and were missed.)
Lunch was at the top of Firle Beacon. Where there was a whole array of benches to choose from. Due to poor planning on my part, it was a stale and cardboardy sandwich for me, but SLL was ready with the Wispa for a burst of sugar energy.
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| Cows. From a distance. |
The part I did not enjoy was the cows on Firle Beacon. Cows are now very firmly out of favour. I would have taken a more close up shot except that I was far too scared to reach for my phone, concentrating instead on making it through the field without drawing attention to myself.
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| Redundant gate |
The cow 'situation' was not improved by the end of their field being marked by a gate and nothing more. A gate with no fence either side. A redundant gate. Still, somehow the cows stayed on their side of the gate. A placebo gate, perhaps.
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| Crop circle territory |
I enjoyed the rolling cornfields. I'm sure they would have been spectacular against a blue sky.
My only other 'complaint' then was the aforementioned uppishness of the walk. 'Downs' is a misnomer on this one. We decided that there's a good reason this leg is shorter than some others. It must be becaus there is more incline than otherwise to navigate. At least that's how it felt: as if we were traversing a leg of the South Ups Way.
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Sheep. Much friendlier than cows.
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We survived the post-lunch lull to reach Long Burgh Long Barrow and head into Alfriston. The Barrow, like so much of today's walk was covered in flowers.
Alfriston itself was a very pretty village, with enough quirky shops, pubs, and tea rooms to warrant further exploration at some future date. It is also right on the SDW, so no retracing of steps when we return, another bonus.
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| Cheers! |
We were spoilt for choice for pubs in Alfriston. We plumped for the George for no reason in particular. Hearth-Father, our chauffeur home, was keen on catching the end of the cricket, which had reached a particularly exciting stage by the time we arrived, so we watched England reach victory over Australia in the third test at Headingly on SLL's mobile phone. Wood and Woakes were in at the end for the winning runs. In the end it might be described as a 'comfortable' win by three wickets, though it felt anything but comfortable in the moment. It was another memory in a memorable day.
And so now, we are so very nearly there. One more walk to go, currently planned for September. It looks like a stone's throw on the map. Onward!
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