Hello lovely people and welcome back to another travel blog. I hope you are enjoying the beautiful sunny bank holiday at the end of May. I sure did! I am so happy to finally share another “travel” blog post with you guys as I finally left London for a day to do an adventurous hike on the South Coast of the United Kingdom, Eastbourne.
To go to Eastbourne, I took the train at St. Pancras and it takes you about 1:45 hours to get there. You will need to change trains in London Bridge or in East Croydon, whatever is convenient to you.
Super excited to have done this hike with a friend, the weather was perfect, great company and a hell of a hike. Happy to say, I made it (alive) and I am super proud of myself that I did the 24km in total (from and to home), but man… it was tough at some points. It is a lot of uphill (envisage on UP) and downhill. The view, company and weather make it all worth it.
Eastbourne is famous for its Britains highest chalk cliff. From the station, it will take you up to maybe 30 min to get to the South Downs Way. The old town looks a bit like you are in France or Spain, the architecture is so different from what I am used to seeing in London.
From there we hiked up to the west of Beachy Head, Birling Gap. We took some time to have lunch and enjoy the pebble stoned beach. The complete hike is mesmerizing, nature, the sea, the sun and majestic chalk cliffs.
A tip is to bring some lunch with you to eat on the beach, so you don’t have to line up and wait a very long time to get lunch from the beach restaurant when you are in Birling Gap. There is also a pub called Beachy Head, not sure if you need to book in advance, might be worth it as well.
Another beauty on the way is the Beachy Head Lighthouse, it is the last traditional style ‘rock tower’ that was built by the Trinity House. Another lighthouse we saw is the Belle Tout Lighthouse “Britain’s most famous inhabited lighthouse”. It is a Bed and Breakfast now, I would love to stay here one day. Can you imagine the night sky from here?
From the beach, at Birling gap we were heading back to Eastbourne. This was the heavy part of the hike. It just seemed like there were a lot more uphills with the wind against us, which made it a tough hike back to the old town.
Heading back to the old town, we had a traditional Fish and Chips waiting for us near the Eastbourne Pier. We were planning to go to the famous Odyssey Fish and Chips, but we went to Harry Ramsden’s instead. Just because the Odyssey only do take away and we wanted to sit somewhere inside after the last part of the hike was very windy and it got a bit colder.
Above are some of the pictures I took along the way. This hike is a recommendation. There are so many beautiful sites here in the UK to explore, I can’t wait to see more of them. If you enjoyed this blog post and find it useful to get some inspiration when travelling to the UK, please rate the post below.
Thank you and enjoy the rest of Spring, especially since it is finally getting warmer.
