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An early departure from Pevensey after being woken by some incredibly irritating and noisy crows saw us riding along the seafront at Eastbourne once again, this time fully laden under a surprisingly warm sun and blue sky. We really didn’t realise the viciousness of the climb we had ahead of us, up and over the South Downs, and past Beachy Head. Once at the top though the scenery was fantastic, small puffy white clouds counterpointed the blue sky as we looked back over Eastbourne, and I realised this was a golden opportunity to get out my pocket sized binoculars which I’d packed for just such an occasion. After I’d got bored of that (about 30 seconds, I won’t bother bringing them again) we carried on over the rolling grassy hills with grazing sheep then dropped down an alarming descent into East Dean which saw me hitting 35mph under braking, and annoyingly Kez did 35.5, proving she was the braver on the descent, or maybe just couldn’t work her brakes properly. The prospect of a nasty busy A259 hill out of this hamlet had us asking for an alternative route and we were directed into a field, which although unrideable was an absolutely beautiful flowery bunny ridden meadow, which sweapt right up the side of the valley. A strenuous push on foot away from the traffic was welcome though, and again the views were beautiful. Another really tough climb further on saw us struggling up a hill with a trail of traffic caught behind us, headed by a particularly noisy cement lorry nipping angrily at our heels. Steep verges either side prevented us getting off for a rest and I think Kez was near heart attack brought on by traffic panic as much as by effort. By the time we crested the hill and found a spot to get our breath back we were both sweating hard and pretty exhausted. This is not beercycling terrain. Finally another white knuckle descent brought us back to the coast, and into the town of Seaford, where we bought a bottle of meths for our stove and impressed an old fellow at our hill cycling ability when he asked where we’d come from.
From here we picked up pretty coastline cycle paths which took us through Newhaven and Peacehaven. We’d planned on a lunch stop in Brighton but seconds after taking a snap of us triumphantly standing in front of the Brighton and Hove sign, I felt one of my spokes break, and the wheel buckled enough to make the tyre rub heavily against the chain stays. I’d half expected this, since the wheels were on their way out anyway, and I’d brought a hypercracker and spare spokes with me in case of such an event. Of course the broken spoke was drive side so I was going to have to get messy. Annoyingly once I’d replaced it and started trying to true the wheel another old spoke broke as I tried to adjust it, so by the time all this was done, we really didn’t have time to stop in Brighton, Our choice of camp sites around here was very limited, and it was still a long ride to our proposed site at Littlehampton. So we made our way on along the seafront, on the helpful cycle paths through Hove, Shoream and Worthing. Hot sun, but thankfully fairly flat. Got a bit lost trying to follow the Sustrans Coastal route through Angmering and Rustingdon, but after asking at a pub eventually found our ‘Daisyfields’ camp site. We were disappointed to find there was no site shop for supplies, but the shower block was definitely the best yet. It had been a fairly tough and at times stressful ride today and we both enjoyed a long hot shower, before realising that we hadn’t really had anything to eat all day, so decided to walk into town and find somewhere to get a beer and a decent meal.
It was quite a long trudge down to the seafront, where I expected most of the town to be, but when we got there we couldn’t see much apart from a Harvester restaurant, so begrudgingly went in there for dreadful service, but a fairly hearty lamb and steak meal with multiple trips to the salad bar. Sustenance and ale made us both feel a lot better, and we had a gentle stroll back through the dark to our campsite, and gratefully into bed.

I woke just as the sun was starting to come up and made my way blearily to the toilet block to empty some ale. Seeing that I was the only possible source of food in the otherwise silent, sleeping site an entire mob of probably fifteen resident ducks made a bee line for me and started quacking, honking, parping and barking at the top of their little duck voices. I desperately threw some bread at the nearest caravan and dived back into the tent. Eventually Kez stirred and I got a coffee going, then cooked us up a bloody good breakfast of fried bread, eggs and mushrooms before we hopped on our unladen bikes and took a relaxed ride into Eastbourne.

We explored the enormous pier and grabbed an overpriced coffee on the seafront. The breeze unkindly blew Kez’s cocoa dusted milk froth onto her grey top, making a large embarassing poo stain down her front, but the coffee franchise girl grumpily gave her some stinking dish rag from the kitchen to mop it off with, which frankly didn’t help much.
Some exploring later we decided to have fish n chips in a famed ‘Harry Ramsden’s’ chip restaurant, it was fairly average to be honest, but filled a hole. A few beers in the town later we decided to head back to the campsite, however I suddenly realised I’d lost my favourite folding peaked baseball cap from the Edinburgh Woollen Mill. I worriedly flapped at my pockets for a few minutes before Kez pointed out that we were in fact standing outside an Edinburgh Woollen Mill, so I popped in and bought another. £3.49, bargain!
Harry Ramsden seemed to be having quite a worrying effect on Kez’s stomach so she necked some immodium, but even so we had to stop at just about every public toilet and pub on the way back.
At the campsite the wind had got up a bit, and although the sun was still shining on our tent, some amazing banks of rolling black storm cloud were rushing past in an ominously dark sky, so we checked the tent pegs, rescued Kez’s clown style pyjamas which were drying in the breeze and headed up the road to ‘The Castle’ pub where we planned the next days journey and met a nice Dutch couple who we had seen at our camp site. They were touring in a little Ford Fiesta and were certainly more travelled than us, so I suggested they try black pudding for an authentic English experience, they weren’t really sure about the idea but I assured them it would be a taste sensation for their dull dutch palates.
Eventually we wobbled back to the site and I cooked up a late dinner of sausage, Smash and beans. We really must start getting hold of better produce on our travels.

We were up Early, weather looked ok so we had a breakfast of cheese and bacon sarnies before starting to pack up. Just as we were about to take the tent down it started raining so we dragged everything back into the tent and sat it out. Eventually the rain stopped and we rolled up the damp tent and left the camp site about 9am. Cycling was a bit tougher today, bit of a headwind and off and on drizzle. Through Benenden, past Bodium Castle, Cripps Corner and into Battle. There was some draining climbs and by the time we made it up into Battle we were fairly damp. Kez being uncharacteristically optimistic cheerfully told me how we were ok because ‘my pants are dry and the eggs are in my hat!’.. Well that’s ok then. We got a bit stressed with the traffic and tourists so popped into a book shop for a new OS map, glanced at some historic castley thing and headed on. Leaving Battle we spied a pleasant little pub, locked the bikes up and relaxed into a warm nook with a pint and a ploughmans, and watched as the sun emerged and fell cheeringly onto the blossom outside.
Reaching Fairfield Farm campsite at Pevensey was a relief, the sun was still out, and a warm breeze rippled through the tent, drying it almost instantly and allaying any fears we had that after the rain this morning our whole trip would be spent in a damp tent. Kez knocked up a very decent meal from a Mattesons sausage, cous cous tomatoes and peppers, while the resident gang of bolshy ducks stuck their beaks into anything that looked remotely bread bag like. It’s probably bad form to stuff one in our non-stick Trangia pot I thought, and left them alone. We showered and relaxed a bit, at least until Kez realised she’d left a sock in the shower block, which gave her the right arse, so she stroppily turned round and tripped over one of the tent ropes, landing heavily on her knees. ‘BLOODY HELL’ I shouted, anxiously watching our wonderful Hilleberg tent list alarmingly to the side, then ‘… Errr are you ok?’
As the sun was going down we wandered up the road to ‘The Heron’ pub. A good old booze session put the smile back on Kez’s face and we decided it would be nice to stay another night here, and have a little day trip down the road to Eastbourne for an explore, an icecream and a stroll up the pier.