Buy a Seaford return (this should be accepted for the Glynde to Lewes leg).
Here is the route description the ‘right way round’:
It starts with a South Downs Ridge walk. Lunch is in the picturesque village of Alfriston. After lunch there is Cuckmere Haven (a pretty river valley), and a coastal cliff walk into Seaford.
Near the start, the route goes through Firle Park and then follows the South Downs Way for much of the day, with marvellous views across the lush valleys to the north and down to the sea. There are three lovely villages to enjoy during the course of the day, all with open churches: West Firle, West Dean, and (the suggested lunch stop) the old smuggling village of Alfriston, which likes to call its church a cathedral. From Alfriston the route follows the riverbank through the Cuckmere Valley and through Friston Forest down to Exceat (pronounced Ex-Seat), an extinct village on the edge of the Seven Sisters Country Park, where there is a Visitors’ Centre and a tea room and a pub and a bus stop.
The Vanguard Way then leads through the Seaford Head Nature Reserve – hoopoe, bluethroat and wryneck have been seen here – to the beach at Cuckmere Haven. This is a good place to enjoy a front-stalls view of the white cliffs of the Seven Sisters. You follow the coastal path to Seaford, a seaside town with a long esplanade and reconstructed shingle beach.
3 comments:
Does one read the instructions backwards?
Hi Austen, I spotted your comment (tongue in cheek ?) too late for today's walk, but for another time, for tips on "Walking Backwards" - which I wrote over twenty years ago - go to the SWC header bar, click on Walking, then Start Walking, then select Walking Backwards. The guide is redundant for those with hand held gizmos who follow a line on a screen, regardless of the walk's direction, but it might still be of some help for walkers who follow the written walk directions, which I still do.
The train arrived about 10 minutes late and various tactics were employed to beat the rain forecast to arrive by 4. Four walkers set off at top speed, later catching up with one who had started half an hour earlier. The remaining two walkers got a bus to Exceat and thoroughly enjoyed the reverse route from there to Alfriston. There all #7 briefly united with one heading to the George and the rest proceeding at different times and paces. As it turned out, there were only #a-couple-of-showers-but-it-was-very-windy.
The two of us who had started from Exceat duly rolled into Glynde at just after 4. Most of the faster group had already had a drink in the Steamworks and caught thr 1615 train, while we settled in for a relaxing couple of drinks and a few chips before the next one. So all in all the reverse route worked out very well.
PS Note that our Seaford tickets were NOT accepted from Glynde to Lewes.
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