Winchelsea to Hastings

A reed flower

We walked from Winchelsea to Hastings on the hunt for bluebells - and we were not disappointed!  We are going for a week long walk in the Alps soon, so wanted to make sure we were getting sufficient walking training in.  Don't want to get 2 days into 6 full days of walking and start getting massive blisters forming.  So we basically just picked the toughest walk in the book we have - the Time Out Country Walks Volume 1.  We have done a few walks from this book, and they have nearly all been good.  There was just that one disappointing one in the post-apocalyptic chilterns.

There were so many bluebells out

Bluebells in close up

But this walk was nothing like the Chilterns one, it was possibly the best we've done so far.  Great scenery and finishing in Hastings, which was a nice little town.  You start the walk in Winchelsea (which I was constantly mispronouncing, the stress is not where you think it should be).  Winchelsea used to be on the coast but apparently a big storm has meant that it is now 2km inland.  It must have been an almighty storm!

Then it's off through the great English countryside towards the coast.  This walk was opposite to the last one we did.  On the last walk we had to absolutely smash through the first half to get to the lunch spot on time.  On this one no matter how leisurely we walked we arrived at the suggested lunch spot about an hour before they would have started serving.  Luckily the walk passes through Icklesham (which is a tiny village), but in the All Saints church there was their monthly church fete.  We made the detour thinking we could go a piece of cake, or they would at least have a cup of tea on offer, this being the English country side.  But actually they were going all out, multiple types of cake, and a full ploughmans, looks like lunch was back on the cards.  It was perfect walking food, but you did have to sit through being the novelty of the fete.  I don't think they get many outsiders in Icklesham so it seemed like everyone wanted to talk to us and to know where we were from, I guess the accents stood out a bit there.  

Yet more bluebells

All Saints church at Icklesham - first lunch stop

Further on there was yet another pub, where we stopped and had another ploughmans.  I got to say this lunch was nowhere near as nice as the 3 pound one we got at the church.  There was a massive pickled onion.  Imagine a normal brown onion you might get in the supermarket, then imagine it pickled and on your plate.  I would give a lot of money to see someone eat that.  Why on earth would you serve that as a standard part of your ploughmans is beyond me.  But then according to the walking book, this pub we were eating at was meant to be closed, so maybe it was under new management - new pickled onion management.

Lambs seemed to want to feed when they got scared

Potential murderer?

The next section was mainly through fields towards the sea.  All the lambs were a bit bigger since the last walk we did.  I wonder how much longer before they are all slaughtered and we see them in Sainsburys?  There was only one field of cows, but I have to say I was a bit nervous crossing through this one.  Normally cows don't really bother me, but literally a week before we went on this walk I saw a news article about some British walkers who were crushed to death by cows.  I think they were also walking in the south of England, like we were doing.  So I was definitely on the look out for any potential human killers amongst this herd.

Staring down a train

Caterpillar exploring a fence

On the way home we got a little delayed because the train driver saw someone walking along the tracks, I saw the same person, and thought, hmmm that's a bit crazy.  But then when we get to the next station the train driver disappears to phone the police.  I'm not sure why they don't just have a phone or communication device in the engine room so the train driver can make reports at the time of witnessing them.  But apparently not, I guess he had to go find a public phone to make a police report.  He wasn't coming back anytime soon.  I've never had a train driver abandon their train before.

A carpet of bluebells

The sea shore - with added wind farm

The way this walk is advertised in the book is either swimming in the sea or bluebells.  It being an English sprautumn (as Stephen Fry calls this attempt at a season), there was no way there was going to be swimming.  Which left only the bluebells as a possible attraction.  Me in my pessimistic way was thinking maybe we'll see the odd bluebell here and there, with maybe a little glade in one of the woods.  So when we went through the next section I was a bit overwhelmed.  It was a sea of bluebells, with the trees growing out of this blue carpet and the path weaving through them. I've never seen so many, and that by itself made the walk a success, the clifftop walk was merely a bonus after this.

Gorse in full flower - with the sea beyond

Tree which has possibly lost it's roots to erosion

We did eventually hit the sea, it was a walk in two halves - the first was a fairly leisurely stroll through fields with bluebells, tea and cakes.  Whilst the second was an up and down slog along the top of the cliffs.  This 7km section was completely spectacular though.  Apparently the erosion along this part means that an average of 1.4 metres of cliff-face is lost every year.  One village is right on the edge, the path goes between the back gardens of the house and the cliff.  They really don't have many more 1.4m to go before the cliff is running through their back garden.  At one point we had to detour through the town proper since the erosion had claimed the path.  You see fences just ending in mid-air, it is slightly freaky, though there must be great views from their, especially if there is a big storm rolling in.

There are about 4 glens along this section, and in each one there are little woods, with more bluebells and wild garlic, and little streams.  And out of the glens there was bright sunshine and flowering gorse.  No post-apocalyptic feel here.  Everything was flowering - there would be these little abandoned meadows full of bluebells and other flowers (I don't know my English flowers, bluebells, dandelions and foxgloves are about the extent.)

More gorse in bloom - with more sea in the distance

Apple blossom along route

I'm pretty keen to head back to this section of the country, apparently the walk we did wasn't even the "best" in the book.  There's meant to be another one which is even more spectacular.  For those who know a little English geography I'm thinking the seven sisters at some point, so a little further west from where we did this walk.  Maybe I'll save that one for proper summer, when it might actually be possible to swim in the sea without dying from exposure later.

Hastings was a strange little town - very spread out over the cliffs.  It felt a bit like a seaside resort and yet also very old.  I mean I suppose it has been around since at least 1066.

The final view of the day - Hastings