after a rather good night’s sleep we enjoy breakfast at riverdale house b&b — mrs d starts flirting with jake, the charming and enchanting son of the house: soon they are playing together with his wooden trains (well, he’s just about three years or so). the weather has improved in that it’s not raining anymore — we collect our clothes from all over the house where they had been left to dry (luckily our shoes are dry as well!) and set off for a bit of sightseeing in alfriston:

• the national trust’s clergyhouse, and
• the local church, st. andrews, the “cathedral of the south”

both very impressive; it turns out that the clergyhouse was the very first property bought by the national trust back in 1896 for the sum of £10!

after a bit of shopping (mineral water, apples) we start around 11:00 for our walk to lewes. the weather continues to hold, and we follow the “ridge” of the south downs. at the firle paragliding site we pause to watch student paragliders trying to become airborne — the wind is rather variable so this turns out to be a bit tricky and most just fly their paraglider like a kite…

we do meet a couple of fellow walkers as well as some astonished sheep. the walk from rodmell to kingston turns out to be a bit of a chore: mrs d all of a sudden suffers from severe and painful cramps in her legs and only manages to continue with lots of stretching exercises. in kingston we take a break at the juggs before eventually continuing on. luckily the last bit is rather easy and level walking and we reach our b&b for today, berkeley house hotel, where we have the spacious and nice twin bed room right at the top of the house.

after a shower and a short nap, we start our reconnaissance of lewes’s pub-with-food situation. the first attempt is at the john harvey tavern which is the pub of the local brewery — unfortunately it’s bursting at the seams and it seems a hopeless cause to wait for a free table so, on we crawl from pub to pub (sans the alcohol, though): one looks nice, but stopped serving food at 19:00; the next still does food but its patrons are on the wrong side of the shady–non-shady divide; another one was recommended in the guide, but seems to have changed owner and clients the words “tarts” and “floozy in a jacuzzi” sprang to mind. after about an hour we are back at the john harvey tavern which by now has lost some of its high-pressure cooker character and, with a bit of luck, we manage to command a whole table in the non-smoker’s section the beer is quite good, as is the food! we enjoy the evening…

today’s the first day of our south downs way long distance walk! 180km lie ahead of us! to be honest, i am a bit worried whether i will make it — the distance is not what i am worried about, it’s the weight of my backpack (17kg!) and the fact that we have two “long days” ahead of us: one 30km and one 32km day. well…not guts no glory

after a quiet night (no roundabout next to this b&b…) we have breakfast and then start our adventure: we pass through meads village and make our way to the start of the south downs way another couple is just leaving as we get to the official starting point and offer to take our picture they are using a luggage carrying service and only have two small backpacks…

as we set off, the inevitable happens: it starts raining. at first it’s only a drizzle but then it becomes more serious about it and also calls in the help its friend, mr windy. strangely enough, though, i don’t really care: it just feels fantastic to be alive and part of the elements out there and i enjoy the day regardless of the rain!

 

from eastbourne until we turn land inwards towards exceat, we are following the coast line with its sheer drop to the channel on our left. and it’s a roller coaster walk: up and down and up and down. the wind picks up speed and force and soon we keep a respectful distance to the cliff edge as we are pelted with gale force gusts saturated with rain. as we get close to beachy head we see a police helicopter, lots of police, and a winch going over the cliff. some of the police men and women wear gloves and it looks like a forensic operation is under way. increase the distance to the cliff edge

the light is — inspite of the rain — rather interesting and the seven sisters are an amazing piece of coast!

when we reach cliff end it’s, well, the end of the cliffs for us and we turn inland towards exceat visitor center, which we reach after about 30min. the café looks eerily deserted, but we are wet, wet, wet and absolutely crave something hot — and, luckily, we can still order lunch while we wait for our soup of the day along with a pot of tea, the couple we met earlier this morning in eastbourne comes in from the rain, then a group of ladies who refuse to sit down and just stand in a huddle, a bloke with his dogs comes in for a cup of coffee — we are no longer alone.

eventually we are recharged enough to continue to alfriston — but before doing so we take a look at the rather interesting visitor centre with its execellent explanation of how the coast at exceat has changed rather dramatically back and forth over the last 100 years!

the walk to alfriston takes us through wood then over typical down hills and finally through litlington, where we unfortunately ignore the bridge over the cuckmere river in the erroneous belief that there will be another one closer to our b&b for tonight, the riverdale house b&b… we end up walking through a lovely peaceful valley along the meandering cuckmere river all the way to alfriston, past it almost until we reach a bridge across the river and then it’s all the way back through picturesque alfriston (picturesque but wet) back to along the cuckmere river until we reach the sign post for riverdale house. the permeating light rain has turned into a down pour by the time we reach riverdale house. our landlord and landlady for the night, rory and pippa menzies, are fantastic and help us get to grips with our soaked through clothing (the bottom compartment of my backpack has delveloped the ill-conceived notion that it’s a “spa”…) — our room is comfortable and newly decorated, we feel right at home.

after a hot shower we make our way into alfriston again — true to form, it has stopped raining! the george inn catches our fancy and we have a nice dinner!

after a really good night at the hotel eden früh and an likewise good breakfast, we check out and make our way to the main station again. the thalys to brussels leaves cologne at 10:14 and we arrive at the station with enough time to buy newspapers and mineral water.

the trip to brussels is fairly uneventfull and we arrive on time at brussels midi at 12:38 — the eurostar is scheduled to depart at 14:59, so over two hours to pass. brussels midi station is dark and dreary as ever, the usual warning against “thieves operating in that area”, lots and lots of people. belgium’s reputation of having a good cuisine is not really reflected by the assortment of fast-food places at the station… we settle for a café close to the eurostar departure lounge and read the papers.

at 14:20 we move over to the eurostar departure area, check in, check through belgium border control, through the x-ray-thingy, through UK border control and — wait for the bording to begin.

the eurostar leaves brussels almost on time and we are racing through belgium and france before we reach the channel tunnel, having late lunch at 300kph is not something we do every day the ride through the channel tunnel takes just 21min (that’s almost the same amount of time it takes from zurich through the zimmerberg tunnel to thalwil) and shortly after we get off the eurostar at ashford international — a rather typical small town railway station in kent. we wait away the time until the next train to eastbourne leaves an hour later in the lovely, well-stocked café-with-a-view on the platform — well, kind of…

the weather seems to be undecided on whether to start raining or hold back when we arrive in eastbourne — and we arrive on time! which is rather amazing after a journey by train across half of europe…

our b&b for the night is the beachy rise b&b in meads village, just east of eastbourne: it turns out to be a nice little b&b, nothing too fancy nor to frilly but instead a nice little room at the top. there are a couple of shops and two pubs around the corner (along with an ATM at the little supermarket) — we opt for the ship inn as the pilot inn seems to be a bit too “atmospheric” for our taste: food is good, beer is as well.

we are staying for the night in cologne in the hotel eden früh next to the cathedral. tomorrow it’s a long train ride with the thalys from cologne to brussels, then a 2 hour break, followed by a eurostar ride to ashford internation in kent, southern england, from where we will hopefully take the last train for the day to eastbourne. starting tuesday morning we shall be on our way to winchester, following all 160km of the south downs way — on foot and carrying all our stuff on our backs…

the original timetable had us leaving erlangen tomorrow morning with a train leaving erlangen station at shortly after 5:00 (in the morning) — yes, not really our cup of tea. so we booked a double in the hotel eden früh and took an early afternoon train to cologne. that way we get a good night’s sleep and don’t have to get up before waking up…

the hotel is quite nice, location is perfect: just around the corner from the main station, 100m away from the cathedral and lots of places to eat just around the corner. oh, and the beds are really good (we are preparing ourselves mentally for the chevy-style 1.40m “double” beds we are sure to encounter over the next 10 days).

for dinner we went to the pub belonging to the hotel, just left of it and had good beer along with some rather good regional grub…

tomorrow we’ll start on our south downs way adventure: a 180km walk from eastbourne to winchester — not only will we walk that distance but we will also have to carry our stuff ourselves: at the latest weigh-in it was round about 15kg each…we are not entirely sure, whether we can pull that one off…(or should i say, carry it through?)

anyway, i’ll post more or less frequent updates to my twitter account which you can either keep an eye on or which you’ll also find in the sidebar on the left — so, if you’d like to find out what happens: stay tuned

Talking to the chatty trees…

In the CIS “high speed” train going directly to zurich GPS reception isn’t

1805: we’ve managed to get a taxi to tenero stazione and are on our way to catch the 1904 from bellinzona

We reach mergoscia posta at 1735 which is a tad late for the 1710 bus

on top of madone:-) scared sh..less in places descending to mergoscia now

reached the cim della trosa and continue to madone

Just past cimetta and starting the ascend to cim del la trosa

in a bleeding cable car from orselina to cardada… How i hate these contraptions

Changing into the local train to locarno at bellinzona… sun is getting through

…and in the (rather slow moving) CIS high speed train (lol) to bellinzona

caught the 0705 to zug from thalwil…didn’t sleep too well due to the excitement

tomorrows walk (cardada - mt madone - mergoscia) mapped out, printed, and GPS route uploaded, looking up train times now

booked hotel in cologne for the 13th now to avoid having to get up at 4am to reach the eurostar in brussels…much better solution

back home after a beer with reto…income tax bill for 2005 finally arrived: far less to pay than expected, nice

calling it a day…thunderstorm has not made it to us so far…