Eastbourne June 2005

Decided to get out of London for the weekend and picked somewhere close for my first trip with British Rail, just in case! Picked Eastbourne more or less at random, and booked to go on Saturday morning, returning Sunday evening - just a short break. The train was very good in the end - and we went through some beautiful horse country on the way down.

Well, it was a very beautiful place - great Victorian buildings, Pier, pebble beach,  chalk cliffs, and the start of the South Downs. The chalk cliffs brought back my worst childhood fear of heights - there was no visible edge and it was mostly unfenced, which combined with the gale force winds made me very cautious with every step. Apparently people lose their dogs over the edge quite a lot, because you're over ir before you see it. On the walk back to town, I stupidly decided that there was an interesting walk on a lower level of cliffs and started heading down what I thought was a path, but I'm sure was actually a goat track! It was so steep that my feet slid a few feet with every step.....didn't dare turn back or even stop, but eventually made it down in one piece and a very accelerated heart rate....

It was a very relaxing weekend, but I think I was the only person in the area between the age of 7 and 60! Definitely a pensioners paradise...