Awake at 6.30am and ready to face the world and enjoy a bright sunshiny day! I can hear the sea lapping on the stony shore at Eastbourne and I get out the map with my coffee - suddenly I realise this is for real and I have 3 days of walking in front of me and I have to sort everything as I am going to be camping and stuff this is really going to be a test of the bright idea! The first job was to pack the rucksack and see what is actually in it - and when I do I feel quite confident that I might just do it rather than survive it! All I need to is go and buy a tent and a torch/light and some food for my first camp meal.
After a very enjoyable breakfast - full English is the only way. I jump in the car and head off to buy a tent and find a campsite. This is as basic planning as you can imagine.
Milletts here I come and I am going to buy a tent - not just look but actually buy! It is 8.45 and I am virtually banging on the door of Milletts as they open. "Good morning! Can I help you" for once I dont look like a rabbit in the head lights "Yes" says I, "I want a tent just for me and not too heavy as I am back packing. Oh and not too pricy as I am only just trying this out" Away he goes and finds me a tent - " This will be perfect - the backpacker - last years model £30 and any of this selection at 1/2 price and do you want a mallett as the ground might be a bit hard?"
"Yes please! The tent will be lovely and yes to the mallett and the wind up light it will be a perfect 1/2 price thing!" Little did he know that I wanted a light and that I had been ruminating over the backpacker for ages!!!!
9.05 I am out of the shop feeling even prouder of myself than you could believe.
940 I am at a campsite where the warden is slightly confused that I want a pitch for one night and it is only me!!!!
Now to set up the tent and to be honest it went up easier than I thought. For a first time but it still took me a good three quarters of an hour!
I leave the tent and get a bus to Hastings for the first part of my adventure. I am only taking a day pack as the tent is already up. I know where I have to head to and it is also the first day of a proper walk in ages so I think I should break myself in gently.
I get off the bus and find the tourist information to buy a card to keep as a record of my journey and to ask just how far it is to walk and whether I can actually walk along the coast all the way. "ummm errr yea I think so and it is about 16 miles I think!" So I was none the wiser I had thought that it was about 12 so 16 is only a little bit further isnt it???? I gave up there and ended up buying post cards from a souvenir shop but on asking about the actual whereabouts of the picture I was vaguely answered that it must be in the old town and that is just dodwn the road- I am talking about a cliff lift - are you really telling me that we are a nation that doesnt know where significant points in our own town are??? This is depressing!
Anyway the campsite is at Pevensy Bay which is a bit closer so it must be do-able. I had never realised just how long a beach can be! I walked virtually the entire way on a promenade with just a few detours onto the actual beach.
At Bexhill I walked along a fair stretch of the shoreline when I met a little boy in tears on a bike shouting to his mum. Obviously I thought he was tired and had lost the will to ride his bike ( I later found out it was a sulk to get an ice cream - trust me to interfere!) Anyway I dared him to race me to mum - that distracted him enough to get on his bike and ride! Then he followed me as I walked on and I said he still hadnt beaten me as he hadnt gone past me next thing he is off like mad and going way in front of me and his mum is now catching up and walking along with me as he is going at a rate of knots! Mum tells me that it is walkable to Cooden but she wasnt sure about any further. He was dead chuffed that he beat me as he had taken it that I was racing him to the next road - miles away!!!!
Next person I met was a lady ex Deal resident who chatted about the coastal path that was now on the beach. Who informed me that it isnt that far to Eastbourne and that she has once walked it and it is a lovely day out. And that most of it is proper promenade after Normans Bay. I pass Coodens Beach Hotel and instantly recognise it as the place I did my first training on my old job and had cursed it then but now I was looking at it with fresh eyes!
I then found Normans Bay which was very annonomous (I now realise that it is a nudist beach!) And not one naked body was seen - gutted! Still I was flagging so too much excitement might have upset me!
The last stretch of my walk that day was Beachlands which was tiring and I was getting sure that it wasnt just me but that this was now over 10 miles that I had walked. I called into a caravan park and bought an ice lolly and asked directions by now I was convinced that I had missed Pevensey Bay but no it is a mile down the road and you cant miss it! I now rememered that I had not bought any bread or anything for my tea apart from a tin of beans this was not promising to be a tasty and well earned meal!
I finally got back to my abode tent sweet tent at about 5.30 and felt shatttered - I had been walking since 12 and not really stopped. It had been warm and slightly hard to do with all the shingle and stony paths but I had done the first part of my mission and I was alive! Amazing how a wash and a cuppa revives you! Nipped to Asda got food and a cup for my coffee - something I forgot!
Just googled the Cooden Beach Hotel and found this walk!!! http://www.walkingclub.org.uk/book_3/walk_66/index.shtml
Grr why didnt I find this before - consolation is that it marks my walk as 12 miles and that Beachlands is very heavy going!
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