The last day was both dazzling, with over eight miles of walking along rolling hills next to the white cliffs overlooking the sea, and exhausting, because the Seven Sisters, a series of hills that form distinct sections of the white cliffs, go up, then down, then up, then down, all in quick succession. Tracy said she felt like it was more demanding that the sixteen-mile day and I tend to agree, though I was in a bit better shape than she was, having cheated and taken a day off.

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From our Alfriston B&B host, we got a tip on getting back on the trail without having to go back up to town. He left us with the famous last words locals always give: “You can’t miss it.” We almost did, since the rejoining of the South Downs Way involved a little fifty-foot jog in a counter-intuitive direction at a trail junction. We got lucky when we were standing at this junction puzzling on why there was not a SDW sign post, when a jogger came by. We asked, and she said she wasn’t a local, but that there was a trail just to the north (left) of us that went into the tiny village (no shops, just five houses and a pub) of Lullington. We walked up to that trail, and voila, we were back on the South Downs Way. Phew. Can’t miss it my ass.

 

Then we had a pleasant encounter with a horse that turned bizarre when he first sort of went for Tracy’s walking pole, then, as we set off again after saying hi, he tried to bite her pack. I shooed him away, and he followed us all the way to the end of his field and hung out at the kissing gate after we went through. Tracy had to use grass to wipe horse saliva off her pack (yuck) but we were otherwise fine. Just kind of weirded out.

The trail, I am sure you’ll be astonished to hear, did some up and down stuff, went through a forest for a while, and descended into an adorable little village that had one big hill so dauntingly steep they’ve simply put steps (200 in all) into the hillside. I actually find hiking up stairs carved in a hill hard, because they are either wildly uneven, making for one painfully steep step up and then a tiny one, or they are too evenly spaced and shallow, so you go two steps on each landing and thus end up using the same leg to go up each time.

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We got up there, went over a fully stone stile (see photo) and descended into the last little green part of the Cuckmere River, where we were entering the Seven Sisters Park. We had a few moments of dread when, shortly after we’d gone over a bit of a hill (surprise) and descended toward the river, we saw a big group coming over the crest behind us, perhaps thirty people. Dear God, we’re going to get stuck with swarms of people for the next eight miles! Thank heavens they seem to have been doing only that hill as part of the seafront path; once we started ascending the first of the seven sisters, we had the park mostly to ourselves.

For the next few hours, we oohed and aahed and took a lot of these photos, and saw about five people total. It’ just stunningly dramatic scenery, and despite the insistently steep ascents and descents, we were hearing in our heads (or at least I was) the drumbeat of completion, the excitement of knowing we were getting close. These chalk cliffs really give you a feel for the layering of geology, although we both feel like the time scale of their formation is so huge it makes it hard to comprehend the time that passed to put these layers upon layers of decaying sea life into this mass of calcium.

This is the kind of landscape in which you (or at least I) find it hard to articulate anything intelligent, instead falling back on a series of repeated phrases to my walking companion: “Look at that.” “It’s incredible.” “Look at the layers.” “It’s so big.” The Algonquin Roundtable we were not.

We had a nice but rather sudden re-entry into civilization because there’s a hotel and café and a few houses planted after you’ve finished the Seven Sisters but while you still have a lot of climbing and open green land ahead before reaching Eastbourne and trail’s end. Lots of tourists who just want a pretty view and a walk up a single hill come to this spot, so we enjoyed a Diet Pepsi (Again! What the hell, English cafes at strategic locations?!? Get your act together) and did some serious people-watching.

Got a nifty refrigerator magnet with an image of the Seven Sisters on it (I try to collect a fridge magnet for every walk I do), then set out for some more up and eventually some serious-ass down. It was by then around 11:30 or noon, but we walked on before stopping for lunch. This end of the park, which has roads and places by the roadside to park, is much more populated, but still expansive enough that you can enjoy it (at least on a Friday; I don’t know what a weekend day would be like).

The shock for both of us was that the hills after the Seven Sisters are in fact higher than the sisters, so we had a long long persistent ascent that kept looking like it was about to reach the top, only to reveal more up when you crested a roll of hillside.

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We got to a spot that seemed about as high as we could go, within sight of a pub set on the road clearly for people to come take in the high views, and stretched out for a very nice lunch break of about half an hour. And then finally down, along a cliff-side path and down into Eastbourne, a shockingly big city that’s got that beachfront vacation city vibe, with tons of hotels from nice to el cheapo, and lots of places to buy fudge and ice cream.

The official trail ends on the edge of town.

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But since our B&B was on the other side of town, beyond the big pier in the middle of town, and since the guidebooks all suggest that SDW walkers tend to like to mark the end of their trail at the pier, we did just that, taking perhaps the worst selfie I could manage. What happened there? Oh well. Trail completed. It’s been a thrilling trip, walking nearly 250 miles, nearly 100 of them with my sister. I’ve seen beautiful things, thought a lot, eaten some good food and some other food, felt the muscles ache and the muscles grow, felt the blisters on my toes turn to callouses, and had a chance to just calm down a bit away from my busy life.

What next? I don’t know. I’ve heard great things about Scotland, and there are several nifty trails in Cornwall, a part of England I’ve never seen, and Wales and Ireland are both singing their siren song to tempt me back to their trails. I am not ready to plan yet, and the trip has me calm enough to not obsess over planning anything just now.