Kickscoot The Coast: Bexhill-on-Sea - Birling Gap

Bexhill-on-Sea - Birling Gap

I am doing this scoot to raise awareness and funds for the ME Association so if you would like to you can sponsor me here.

Here are the links to the previous sections of this trek;
Whitstable - Broadstairs
Broadstairs - Walmer
Walmer - Capel-le-ferne
Capel-le-ferne - Littlestone
Littlestone - Rye
Winchelsea - Bexhill-On-Sea

It has been a very long time since my last scoot - 10 months I think.

I have had a pretty bad year health wise, January saw me go back to square one and have to rebuild my energy levels. I didn't start making headway with this until May. So unfortunately this has meant a pause in my journey.

Recently I've been getting restless and really wanted to push onward with my scoot. I was going to go last weekend, but then had to have a wisdom tooth pulled out which put a stopper on that idea.

To put energy into perspective a little, having my wisdom tooth removed pretty much wiped out 6 days!

So today was the day. I had a terrible night's sleep and woke feeling rubbish but sod it, this is something I want to do and I've reached my limit of resting and only doing small amounts.

Weather looked ok, no other plans, so off we went.

Let's just say the car journey to the beginning was an eventful one…

Back to Bexhill-on-sea! Which was just as lovely as I remembered it, albeit a tad stormy looking this morning.

The wind was against me but wasn't too strong and I pootled along nicely, dropping the odd special magnet along the way. Lots of roads today though around Pevancy so didn't catch many sights of the sea to start with.

Then as I approached Eastbourne it started to get very busy. I've never been to Eastbourne before so wasn't sure if this was normal, but seaside resort in August I figured it was bound to be a bit busy. It quickly got to a point where I couldn't safely scoot down the sea path so I moved onto the main roads, but they were jammed too...

At this point I discovered this weekend is the Eastbourne air show!

I abandoned my sea view and found my way deeper into the town to find some quieter roads/paths, followed signs for Beachy Head and was soon moving again, my scooter was now reading very low battery, but I was not going to stop without getting up to Beachy Head!

Next there was a lovely path winding down away from the town to a lush green field at the very bottom before the steep climb up to the top.

And my was that a climb!

I am particularly unfit at the moment after 8 months of mostly rest and that particular climb I feel would be hard work for anyone - not pushing a scooter!

The views were **stunning** and I got to watch a red arrows display while I stopped to eat my lunch half way up.

I had imagined Beachy Head would be a very quiet place, I thought I may meet the odd dog walker or tourist but that would be about it. I was about as wrong as I could possibly have been.

It was incredibly busy, cars and people everywhere! I had a large audience watch me huff and puff my way up that hill, they must have thought I was mad!

I was so pleased to have gotten to the top and to find a road again!

My scooter was now reading zero battery but Ben was a long way off in the car and anyway it was too busy for him to park, so I continued.

I am so glad I did, what amazing scenery! And what a wonderful downhill winding road.

I popped up to have a look at Belle Tout as it was not far out of the way and had a great view of Beachy Head lighthouse.

There was a sign here which said Birling Gap 20min walk, so off I went. Absolutely no phone signal at Birling Gap but somehow Ben found me and we headed off for a well earned dinner out.

I remembered to start Strava, but forgot to press stop so the figures aren't exactly accurate.

We are now very much at the point where we need to be staying away from home in order to continue as Ben and the kids spent 4.5 hours in the car today! I don't think I am fit enough to do 2 consecutive days scooting yet, so from here on in may take a very long time… You'll have the bear with me.