Alfriston to Eastbourne

We slept well at Dean's Place and had a lovely breakfast watching a florist delivering flowers - so presumably they have a wedding today. Dean's Place is undoubtedly more upmarket than we'd usually book for overnight accommodation on a walking holiday, but we'd so much enjoyed the little holiday within a holiday (which is what it felt like) that we will perhaps think about booking into this sort of place more often, as a special treat to ourselves. We'd woken to sunshine; we had only an occasional spot of rain during the day, and the sun came out from time to time, but it was windy and distinctly cold. Apart from this, it was a lovely walk for our final leg of the South Downs Way.

We left Dean's Place around 9am and walked back into Alfriston to buy provisions for lunch, admiring the quaint and picturesqueness of the village en route. The village shop seems to sell everything and it speaks volumes of the character of Alfriston that "everything" here includes a delicatessen counter at which we bought slices of tomato and basil quiche for lunch. We headed out of Alfriston and crossed the Cuckmere River (or at least, part of it - it was just one narrow stream at this point) by way of an attractive white bridge. We were also on the Vanguard Way at this point, and we parted company with the "riders' route" of the South Downs Way; their route follows the northern edge of the South Downs and only joins the walkers' route again right at the very end.

We took a riverside path around the back of Alfriston - there were good views to the Church and the Alfriston Clergy House, but when we saw the back of Dean's Place we were very grateful that we had a room on the front! We continued across the flood plain then climbed up into the next village of Litlington and beyond. There were good views across the valley to the Litlington White Horse.

Past Charleston Manor, which appeared to be under wraps (and which, in writing up today's walk, I discovered should not be confused with Charleston Farmhouse which is back near Firle, to the north of yesterday's route) we climbed up steep steps and into the delightful Friston Forest. We let several other walkers past us, though we were walking pretty much at the same speed as three female walkers and we didn't lose sight of them until we'd negotiated several of the Seven Sisters. We descended until the pretty village of Westdean. For the first time of the whole holiday, there was a junction with confusing signposting, with some indication that we were to turn left, which didn't look right from the map; we went straight ahead which proved to be the correct thing to do. This brought us to a pond (where a group of women were doing yoga-type activity) and a long flight of steps back up into the forest; the steps were shallow ones so the climb was not too taxing.

We emerged from the forest to a good view of the Cuckmere Valley, with the river meandering its was down to the coast at Cuckmere Haven. We descended to the visitor centre at Exceat and crossed the busy A259. I know this section of road quite well, from many trips from Open University summer schools at the University of Sussex to Birling Gap and Newhaven for fieldwork.

There were quite a lot of people about, mostly walking straight down to the coast. Rather fewer were climbing up onto the Downs, then straight back down again to Foxhole Bottom, but this is what the South Downs Way does! The climb gave us good views; Richard camped somewhere near here with his family when he was much younger, there is now a campsite and camping barn further up from the river then Richard remembers, but there were no signs of anyone actually camping. We stopped at Foxhole Bottom to apply sun cream and put on Richard's sun hat, but the sunshine didn't last and it was too windy for the hat, so it soon went away again.

From Foxhole Bottom we climbed steadily up onto Haven Brow and were eventually standing on the top of the first of the Seven Sisters. I'd expected the walk along the rest of them to be tough going, to the extent that, with blisters on both little toes and rather painful ankles, I thought I might struggle to make it to the end. We stopped at Foxhole Bottom to apply sun cream and put on Richard's sun hat, but the sunshine didn't last and it was too windy for the hat, so it soon went away again. However the dips and climbs are quite short, and perhaps I'm fitter than I thought; the whole thing didn't feel too strenuous at all. From Haven Brow we progressed rapidly to Short Bottom, Short Brow, Limekiln Bottom, Rough Brow, Rough Bottom, Brass Point, and we stopped for lunch on a bench in Gap Bottom.

Hang on a minute...we'd been over four brows and we could see another four between us and Birling Gap. It appears that the next climb, up to Flagstaff Point doesn't count (and Flagstaff Point isn't visible on the labelled photographs of the Seven Sisters) but it felt real enough on the ground, with a memorial to the gift of land that formed the Seven Sisters Country Park. From here came Flagstaff Bottom, Flat Hill, Flathill Bottom, Baily's Hill, Michel Dean and finally Went Hill before we descended to Birling Gap.

If I had some memories of the road around Exceat Bridge from summer school field trips, I have many memories of Birling Gap, including the rapidly receding coastline (the already shored-up coastguard cottages look even more precarious than they did five years ago), discovering that we had no special diet packed lunches on the coach, and trying to provide access to the fieldwork for students in wheelchairs. They have built a new viewing platform above the steps down to the beech, which would have helped considerably with the latter. For now I just wanted a cup of tea, which we obtained in the National Trust cafe, before sitting outside to apply some TLC to my feet.

My sadness over times gone by intensified as we climbed up towards the Belle Tout lighthouse. We used to do ecology fieldwork on this slope, but it is so worn now that you'd never be able to count plant species, even assuming that we didn't end the Sussex residential school in question in 2012. It was also around here somewhere that I fell over when out walking with Richard's parents when I was ill in 2004 - the good news is that I am fully recovered, but Richard's parents are now both around 90 and struggling.

If the text in our guidebook and on various websites had led me to over-estimate the difficulty of the Seven Sisters, it had also led me to underestimate the climb up to the Belle Tout lighthouse (which was famously moved away from the crumbling cliff edge in 1999 and is now an upmarket B&B) and then, after a dip into Shooters' Bottom, the continued climb to Beachy Head - it wasn't a difficult climb, just long! They were obviously trying to keep people away from the cliff edge, but we managed occasional views down to the Beachy Head Lighthouse, which is spectacularly located at the bottom of the cliff.

Eventually we reached the top of Beachy Head; it was distinctly cold and windy and the views to Eastbourne ahead were distinctly grey, but it was a fitting final landmark of the South Downs. We descended surprisingly quickly towards Eastbourne, with the South Downs Way signs taking us onto a narrow path to the coastward side of the main track, with undergrowth providing some shelter from the wind. It felt like no time at all until we were descending the final steep slope to the point at which the countryside suddenly ends and the town begins. Here there are flags, a signpost indicating that it is 100 miles to Winchester, an information board about the South Downs Way, and a convenient bench on which to sit. We photographed, read and sat on these as appropriate. There's also a cafe and a bus stop, but we had decided to walk on to the pier before celebrating properly.

The walk to the pier was not terribly exciting. We were walking into a strong wind and we stayed on the road for most of the way rather than venturing closer to the coast, on the basis that this might have been even more exposed. We had good views of the stony beach to our right (though, unsurprisingly, there was no-one on the beach) and we walked past countless apartment blocks and hotels to our left; some, for example The Grand, looked quite upmarket, others looked rather down at heal. Then, there we were at Eastbourne Pier, our designated end of the walk. So now we just needed to find that cup of tea. After a bit of wandering round the streets, feeling increasingly cold, we found ourselves in the cafe of the department store T.J. Hughes, having their special offer cream tea for the grand price of £2.50 each. Spot on!