Length: 25.1 km/15.6 mi
Ascent/Descent:
80/65m
Net
Walking Time: 5 ½ to 6 ½ hours (if we get
past the shingle beach at low-ish tide)
Toughness:
3 out of 10 (if we get past the shingle beach at low-ish tide)
Take
the 08.56 Ore train from London Bridge (EC 09.12), arrives
Eastbourne at 10.19.
Fast
return
trains from St. Leonards Warrior Square are at: xx.50 and xx.24; to Charing
Cross via LBG and W’loo East.
Buy
a St. Leonards Warrior Square return.
"This
gentle walk follows the flat coastline between Eastbourne and St. Leonards/Hastings.
It is in 3 parts - 2 seafront promenades with a quiet shingle beach in between
which is nice to walk on only at low tide when the flat sandy part of the beach
is uncovered." I’ve
monitored the tide times for a long time now, wanting to post this, but they
never were right, but today they are at least kind of right: Low Tide at Eastbourne is at 10.20, which leaves 1 ½ to 2 hours
to get past the shingle beach and that finishes around the 9 km mark in the walk.
So: eminently doable.
Walk
Options:
Take
a later train and start at Normans Bay or Cooden Beach stations, some way into
the route.
Lunch and Tea:
The Star Inn, a
little inland from the walk route after about 12 km on Sluice Lane (food served
all day);
The Relais Cooden
Beach, now a ‘Relais’ rather than the hotel it used to be, so may be
too posh (14.5 km);
The Farmyard, (a wine bar and
restaurant), right by Warrior Square station (a table has been booked for
18.00);
The Royal, a gastro pub (does
one still use that word? they do...), right by Warrior Square station.
For
walk directions, photos, map, height profile and gpx/kml
files click here. T=swc.66.a
2 comments:
Really interesting walk, and so enjoyable being by the sea. Which is the main reason I did this walk.
I stayed overnight in Eastbourne, at £30 why not. And commenced at 9.00. Unsurprisingly,no one else was on the walk for all of the 17 miles, at this time, and I ended in the Old Town in the lovely Jenny Lind pub on the High Street. The company, beer, food and excellent live band was so good I was there for almost three hours.
13 walkers off the train, commencing in slightly overcast weather. We needed about an hour and a half to the start of the shingly stretch, by which time the sun broke througha little. Just a wee bit later, the sun - and blue skies - took over completely and that's how it stayed for the rest of the walk. We did encounter mainly sandy walkable stretches along this part of the walk, but there were also plenty of short and not so short shingly parts. [Loads of dog walkers about as well, in fact the most I have ever seen on an SWC walk.] Here we bumped into 2 more walkers who had driven down to Pevensey Bay.
All but 1 picnicker went to The Star Inn at Norman's Bay, which was just amazing in its very own ways: mega-fast service and therefore table turnover, enabling ultra-low prices while maintaining good food and drink quality and motivated and efficient staff.
Back onto the coast after that, there then came a longish stretch between cottages and houses, some top-of-the seawall walking (recently redone, so relatively easy to walk on). Cooden Beach had more flashy houses to ogle at than the previous bits, and suddenly we were in Bexhill. The De La Warr Pavilion Cafe was already closed, as 'Bexhill After Dark' was about to commence (some Goths had been spotted en route, loads of stalls and activities involving open fires and candles seemed about to happen later), so we frequented one of the independent cafes just by the De La Warr. That was again impressive in its efficient service and good quality cakes and drinks.
The group had earlier split up into 3 sub-groups and 1 of the front group and the 2 backmarkers retired to Bexhill Station at this point.
On then along the promenade (beware of the mobility scooters going at pace), under the cliffs and into St. Leonards. Our group of 6 (partly) had a quick drink and boarded the next available train (17.24), while the other group of 4 later stocked up wine at The Farmyard and took a train an hour later. Add 3 Bexhill retirees to that, 2 car drivers and 1 other who had stayed overnight in Eastbourne and walked an hour ahead of the group (he had his lunch roll nicked by a gull, says the secret intel), making for n=16 walkers in w=mostly-sunny weather.
Seen: a 5-strong family of seals on a tidal mudbank in Sovereign Harbour, loads of Sandlings and Gulls, some Starlings and plenty of other birds which I myself did not recognise, but someone else on the walk might have...
Message to future walk posters: best to start the walk about 2 hours before low tide, as that should minimise the exposure to shingle
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