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This Week's Walks - Archive

Please see the Saturday Walker's Club This Week's Walks page.

This is an archive of walks done by the Saturday Walker's Club. You should only need to use this page if the SWC website is down.

Saturday, 2 March 2024

Saturday Walk - Hampden Park to Eastbourne - Parks, Woods, Heathlands, the easterly South Downs. Via East Dean and Birling Gap to Eastbourne

DAC is away

Length: 26.1 km (16.2 mi) [with shorter options, see the webpage or the pdf for details]
Ascent/Descent: 684/679m
Net Walking Time: 6 ½ hours
Toughness: 8 out of 10
 
Take the 09.24 Eastbourne train from Victoria (09.31 CJ, 09.40 EC), arrives Hampden Park 10.50.  
Return trains: xx.05, xx.33
Buy an Eastbourne Return.
 
The walk is book-ended by two of Eastbourne’s favourite playgrounds, Hampden Park and Little Chelsea. In between you contour around the woods of Babylon Down and down to Jevington. Then you climb up to the Eastern-most ridges of the South Downs, between Windover Hill and Wilmington Hill, with tantalising sea views, before turning South to the more sheltered terrain of Lullington Heath, Snap Hill and Friston Forest. You visit the twin villages of Friston and East Dean, then finally reach the sea at Birling Gap, only to immediately turn inland again, across quiet farmland to Warren Hill and the final descent into Eastbourne.
 
Lunch: 4 options in East Dean (14.8 km): The Tiger Inn, Hikers' Rest Coffee Shop, Thai Terre, The Beehive on the Green.  
Tea: loads of options in Eastbourne, see the webpage or the pdf.
 
For summary, map, height profile, photos, walk directions/options and gpx/kml files click here. T=swc.403

1 comment:

Bill said...

Three of us got off the train and were greeted by a sudden hail storm. This would be the reason for the poor turnout we thought. But more fool those who opted to stay in bed as the skies quickly cleared and we could see for miles over the downs and sea.

At about the six mile point we met one more (making our total N=4) who was sitting against a way marker having his lunch. The main group continued to East Dean. The Tiger Inn served us some reasonable food in fifteen minutes.

The sun was out in the afternoon, though the mud remained as greasy underfoot. Some decent climbs, a few temporary electric fences humming warnings and not a soul to be seen.