Day 56- Sandgate to Eastbourne

Well last night we had a real English dinner of pork sausages and mash with some vegetables…. Quite good really!

This morning we were awake early as we had a longer day of riding to Eastbourne. So up and about at 5.30 am and on the bikes around 6.00am.

The first few kms were along the seawall at Sandgate and we saw a caravan selling coffee and bacon sandwiches which was just great for an early morning breakfast. It was quite pleasant sitting in the cafe chairs on the wall watching the world go by and the odd person trying to swim in the water with the pebble beach.

After breakfast it was on again. The weather was quite cool and there was a slight headwind which strengthened as the day went on.

The ride effectively took us along the coast through to Eastbourne except for a slight inland diversion at Rye. We were mainly on cycle ways on the seawall and along the road. At one stage we had a diversion around a live gunfire shooting range which was quite interesting! Not going anywhere near that!

The inland diversion through to Rye was through very bleak terrain with another gunfire range nearby.

Getting into Rye was certainly a bit of a highlight for me as our family holiday home is at Rye in Australia ( on the Mornington Peninsula). The town is an old fishing village with a quaint old world village. We had an early lunch here of a Cornish pasty and a lemonade. The pasty was average at best … mostly pastry which was disappointing. We had a bit of a look around the town after lunch and then proceeded on.

Before we reached the coast again we had the climb for the day which was 2.5km long and ascended about 150 metres. At some stages the gradient was 14% so it was a bit of a work out. After this there was a good decent which was really spoiled with the conditions of the roads! I must say the roads we have travelled on over the past 2 days have been very bad with potholes everywhere with some of them quite deep. It requires a lot of concentration to avoid trouble. We saw one car that passed us with a flat tyre that must have hit a pothole… the driver continued to travel quite fast with the flat tyre…. Very dangerous!

Getting back to the coast again we were effectively on coast cycleways into Eastbourne.

We stopped for an ice cream in Hastings which is a holiday spot for British people and has a Brighton UK look about it. Big hotels and apartments on the seafront and a pier with amusement parks on it.

We also made a stop at Pevensey for a drink and rest as the headwind was quite strong and we were getting some light drizzle.

Shortly after Pevensey we made our way to our hotel in Eastbourne. It is an old early 20th century hotel building on the foreshore and is quite comfortable. Directly opposite there is a pier with what looks like restaurants and amusements.

Today we did 90 plus kms and climbed 300 metres. As I said earlier it was a bit tougher than recent days with the headwind the poor road conditions.

The photos today are:

The route

Early morning breakfast and coffee just outside Sandgate

Breakfast!

A beach with sand!

A lonely house opposite the gunfire range.

A couple of photos of the streets in Rye

Fishing boats in Hastings

The pier at Eastbourne

Our hotel for the night