Day 61 – Angmering to Brighton

 

 Date: Saturday 1^st January 2011   Distance: Miles 24.88

 

Not an early start at 10.30 but we arrived at Brighton, having spent New years Eve with my family in Eastbourne, parking the car in time for a train to Angmering. We arrived at 11.30 in the damp and cold but it wasn't raining. The little station had a small café with a sign advertising hot soup etc but foolishly we decided to wait. It was rather early for lunch.

 

Bob found us little roads near the beach but within a housing estate. We could see the sea through the gaps in the houses. We went round the estate, not the usual all the same but characterful houses with style and some quirky, but couldn’t find the road Bob was looking for. We must have wasted an hour retracing our steps. We followed 2 purposeful joggers who were also thwarted by a high fence. We tried to get the tandem through a kissing gate at a passage with the sea at the end. We were told by a lady who lived nearby, the number of the lock combination on the farm estate gate and at last were on the beach for a few hundred yards before coming to a café. This was at Ferring and this cut through had saved us a few miles down a busy road. The café( only a very basic one at that) was heaving with people having lunch and queuing for lunch. The air was full of crunchy bacon smells but it was still too early and I wasn’t queuing for the loo let alone lunch. The “gents” was free and clean so I used that. No-one seemed to notice.

 

We rode along the prom to Worthing where we were dodging pedestrians. On the shared path. We passed a1930s style pier here. At South Lancing we were still along the sea front. At Shoreham- by- sea the sea was either side of us.



We stopped here for lunch at a pub needing to cross back over to Shoreham town via a footbridge after discovering the pub side didn’t lead to anywhere except sea. It was back over locks to the sea side again but it was all heavy industry here. We helped a couple with bikes who had broken their pump and had just mended a puncture. The sun was setting and we had hoped to get to Newhaven but they confirmed our thoughts that we wouldn’t make it in time to get back for the car before the ticket ran out and also it would be riding unknown roads etc in the dark.

 

It was a long ride along the prom into Brighton, people dodging. We passed the burnt out West Pier and watched the lights of the big wheel on the other.

 

The Brighton Pavilion would have been nice to visit but we had to content ourselves with taking pictures of the outside as time was running out. It would have been over £9 each anyway!  The station was hard to find and right at the end of the whole trip we had our first real hill. Just as hard was the car drive out of Brighton. The one way streets make it a nightmare.