London: Day 6

 Tuesday, June 2

On Tuesday we headed to Brighton. Someone reminded me of the Jane Austen quote from Pride and Prejudice that goes this way: "They  must all go to Brighton. That is the place to get husbands." While that was certainly not the point of our visit, it must be said that Brighton is still considered a party town. After meeting our guide, Kevin, at the train station, we joined three other women in a sixteen passenger van and headed out into the countryside.

Kevin was an absolute wealth of knowledge. I very much enjoyed his narration as we drove about. We headed first to South Downs National Park. The view stretched for miles and he told us we could see into five different counties from there. From there you could get a glimpse of the forest where A.A. Milne based the Winnie the Pooh stories. It is also a popular area for paragliding.

As we drove, Kevin rattled off name after name of stars from the music and acting industry who had visited or lived in Sussex county where we spent the day. He also threw out random information related to agriculture. Sheep have been a big thing until recent years when the wool price has dropped. He explained that the cost of shearing is half of the price you can get when you sell the wool, so farmers are beginning to experiment with sheep who shed the wool naturally. A lot of cattle are also raised on the rolling hills. He mentioned in particular the Aberdeen Angus, which I believe originated in Scotland, and the local breed of cattle, known as the Sussex Red. 

He also pointed out the fields of canola, which the Brits actually call rapeseed. He told us that currently prices are at 800 pounds per ton of canola, about double what wheat or barley is bringing in. That's a little over $1,000 USD.

We arrived next at Middle Farm. This is a a farm that is open to visitors, with a little cafe, a gift shop, opportunities to interact with animals, and shops to buy things for gardens or feed for your livestock. We were told we must try the scones there. 

I am a little confused where we Americans came up with the idea of scones being shaped like a triangle. Every scone I encountered in England was more like a large biscuit. At any rate, I can vouch for the scones at Middle Farm. Add clotted cream and jam to them, and they were incredible with a spot of tea.

We were there perhaps an hour, and it was just about the right amount of time to eat and spend just a few minutes in the shops. Then we piled back into the van and headed off to see the Long Man.

It is believed the Long Man is around 485 years old. He measures 226 feet tall and is actually located on top of an ancient burial ground. No one seems to really know what the significance is. Kevin told us the grade of the hill is about forty degrees.

Now I'd like to mention just a little bit about how he was created. The hills in this area are mostly chalk, starting about a foot or two below the grass. Whoever first designed the long man (and other chalk figures across England) did so by carefully digging trenches through the grass and into the limestone. The bright white you see in the picture above is actually white blocks that the caretakers of the figure have laid out beside the orginal lines because the upkeep costs too much to keep the actual chalk lines in that good of shape. 

The other stone plentiful in the area is flint. Many homes and fences are built of it. The chalk can also be used for many other purposes, one of which is to make mortar. 

After admiring the Long Man for as long as seemed reasonable, we hopped back aboard the van and headed over to Devil's Dyke.

The word dyke to the Brits is the equivalent of ditch. This is a dry riverbed, we were told. Because chalk is so porous, it can rain and rain and water will never collect in the ditch.

As you can see in the picture, there are hiking trails all over in this country, some of them still there from medeival times.

I suppose you would like to know the legend behind how the Dyke got its name. I can't tell it in the same dramatic fashion as Kevin, but I'll try to tell you a bit.

Supposedly, some king or another came into the area and started building churches and spreading religion. The Devil heard of these doings and came over to Sussex to have a look around. When he found the stories were true, he made a plan. He would dig a ditch to the sea and water would rush in to flood the countryside. So he set to work, digging away with his two bare hands.

No one in the village knew he was the Devil. He didn't look like the Devil, just like a man. And although they were very curious about what he was doing, no one came to ask him. Except one. A woman who lived at the top of the hill overlooking the project. She made him tea one day and brought it down. She said she had noticed him working so hard and wondered what he was doing.

The Devil told her. He explained his plan to flood the country. The woman was apparently a thinker who was quick on her toes, because she immediately told him that she thought that was a brilliant idea he had. She asked him how long it would take. He told her he could finish whenever he liked.

The woman asked him if he could be done by morning. Of course, he replied. "Oh, I don't see how you can," she countered, "there's a lot to be done yet." Well, the Devil got angry and told her that he could finish by then. Eventually he promised her that if he wasn't finished by the time the sun rose and the cock crowed, that he would leave and never come back.

And so he continued working steadily. An hour or two after midnight, the woman lit a huge bonfire on the hill and kicked her rooster awake. When the rooster saw the fire, he began to crow. When the Devil heard the cock crowing, he looked up and saw the fire, believed it to be the rising of the sun, and disappeared from the valley, never to be seen in Sussex again.

We continued our tour at Beachy Head Cliffs. These are stunning white chalk cliffs that remind one of the White Cliffs of Dover. There was a little lighthouse visible way down below. The scenery again seemed completely surreal. 

There is a little stone set in the hill with scripture on it reading, "Mightier than the thunders of many waters, mightier than the waves of the sea, the Lord on high is mighty. (Psalm 91:4) God is always greater than all our troubles."

There were no guardrails or any such thing. You could walk as close to the cliff edge as you desired. Kevin told us, however, that the cliffs are eroding at a rate of one meter per year. He pointed out an old lighthouse visible in the distance that is now used for a boutique, and said that it had been moved inland or it would surely have tumbled off the cliff face by now. 

We then proceeded on to view the Seven Sisters, so called because they reminded someone of the headgear worn by a particular order of nuns. We stood first at the edge of the Seven Sisters' cliffs, then drove around to get a view of them from a different angle. At the first stop there was a set of steps you could take to go down to the rocky beach and stand right at the water's edge. There were people out there surfing, and we also glimpsed a large seal in the water. 

The view was completely breathtaking. At our first stop atop the Sisters, Kevin again impressed upon us the rate of erosioin. He explained there had been a number of cottages there, but many of them had already succumbed to the erosion. 

On the far side view (above) we walked through a few cattle and past some sheep. Again, Kevin rattled off names of movies and music videos that had been shot here, but frankly the only one I actually had any real knowledge of was Chitty Chitty Bang Bang.  There was also a plaque to Canadian soldiers who had lost their lives there during WWII.

On the way back to the train station we saw a ship just headed out to cross to Normandy, about a 4 hour journey.

I failed to mention at the beginning, but some of the tube employees had gone on strike, something to do with not wanting to switch to a four day work week. This made traveling about slightly more difficult, but we did manage. We ended up grabbing Chinese take-away from next door for supper.

My step count for the day was only a little shy of 20,000, but I'm guessing it did hit that with all the going up and down of stairs at the flat.