This is my first Wednesday Walk post. I decided last week that I would write one this week, however I thought it was more likely to be a Wednesday mobility scooter ride. However, my health is pretty good at the moment so I actually managed to walk rather than ride.
My walk was along the river at Cuckmere Haven in East Sussex, England.
This, as the name suggests, is where the river Cuckmere flows into the sea and is located in the Seven Sisters Country Park. The Seven Sisters are a set of hills, with cliffs, on the edge of the South Downs that runs for 8 miles along the coast. To make it even more confusing, it's part of the South Down Way a walk popular with hikers.
The area is also known locally as Exceat, but it wasn't until I started to write this post that I found it why it's called Exceat. I always assumed that it got it's name because it's where the river exits into the sea. But this was totally incorrect. The reason it's called Exceat is because it is the site of a fishing village that was wiped out during the Black Death in 1347. All that is left of the village is the ruins of a church, which I haven't seen because I didn't know it was there, and a stone that was set up to mark the spot where the village used to stand. I will have to have a closer look the next time I visit the area. You can find out more about Exceat here
It was about 6pm when my wife and I arrived to begin our walk, and the sun was getting low in the sky, although there was still another 3 hours of daylight left. I only had my phone with me as I forgotten to pick up a camera. I hadn't thought about making a post about my walk until I started walking. So some of the photos aren't as good as I had hoped.
It's about a two mile walk from the car park to the sea, passing along the side of the river Cuckmere. The river isn't very big, and there are many ox bow lakes in this area where the river has gradually become silted up. English Heritage, the owners of the land, stopped dredging the river a few years ago deciding to let the area gradually be changed by the forces of nature. This will mean the area will increasingly become marshland, particularly in the winter. This will provide even more habitat for birds and other wildlife.
There is a population of egrets at Cuckmere Haven. Egrets aren't native to the UK but have started to establish themselves here over the last few decades, almost certainly a sign of global warming. I saw a largish group of them but they were too far away for me to photograph. This is the only shot I managed to get. It's not very clear because of the distance the bird was from me and my lack of a decent camera.
The area has an abundance of wild flowers and grasses. As someone who has only just started to take a lot of photographs, something that only started when I joined Hive, I could see all sorts of potential pictures, especially as the light really picked out individual blades of grasses and the patterns they formed. But my battery was running out and my phone camera really wasn't up to capturing what I was seeing. In fact, the whole experience of this walk has made me start to think about taking up drawing and painting again, something that I haven't really done since I was a kid. It's whether I have the patience or not to learn again that will determine whether the idea of taking it up again will actually happen.
The whole walk was accompanied by the song of skylarks weaving their way in the clear blue sky. I really love to hear the skylarks sing. It takes me back to many happy hours walking on the South Downs. Sadly, there seems to be fewer of them these days. This is the first time in ages that I have heard them singing, even though I have had other walks on the downs in recent years. Thankfully there seems to be a good population of them here. The song of the skylark is the song of the summer to me.
You can see from my photos that this area has a lot of mud flats which are ideal for birds. However, there weren't many about on this part of the walk. It may be because this is a popular area with tourists and there were just too many people about. Or it may have been the wrong time of day or year to see them in abundance. There are mud flats nearer the sea that had a lot of birds on them.
There are a couple of cottages on the cliff edge on the other side of the river. The hill was in shadow when I took the picture above so they're not as clear as i would have liked them to have been. I think they are used by the coats guard, and are two of only a few buildings on this part of the coast that have sea defences, further along the coast is a row of cottages and a pub that are gradually falling into the sea. These two cottages have featured in TV programmes and I think I have seen a movie that had them in it.
This is one of the cliffs that make up the Seven Sisters. The chalk cliffs are very unstable and it is not unusual for large chunks to fall off into the sea. There are signs warning people to keep away from the cliff edges all along the Seven Sisters, however there are always a few that ignore them, choosing to risk their lives in the pursuit of a selfie to share on Instagram. We saw a couple with a small child standing near the cliff edge. I didn't get a photo of them though, I was too concerned about their safety to even think about photographing them. Fortunately they came away from the edge safely.
When we got to the sea, the tide was almost fully in, so we sat and waited for my daughter and family to arrive. We had arranged to meet them by the sea. Eventually they arrived, and my grandchildren and my daughter had a swim. My wife and I decided not to go in this time.
I really enjoyed my walk at Cuckmere Haven. It was wonderful to be out in nature, to feel the breeze, to here the sound of the birds and the gentle roll of the waves, and to smell the sea spray. I'm sure that taking the time to write something down about it, as well as taking photos, will help to etch this memory into my mind. Next time I will take a better camera and make sure it is fully charged.
I hope you enjoyed joining me on my Wednesday Walk. Here is a piece of music that I created that I think goes with the scenery on the Seven Sisters.
All the photos were taken by me on my Android phone.
