Sussex Coastal Walk - Stage Eight - Mind The Goring Gap
So this leg of our walking challenge was a little bit different.
As will be the next.
Because for the first time, rather than continuing with our one stage a week schedule, we decided to do stages on three consecutive days, staying at a local B&B for convenience and also to add a little something to our adventure.
So this leg, from Worthing through to Littlehampton, was actually day two of our three day jaunt and just felt a little bit different to our usual walks. No early start and no long(ish) car journey. As we had walked 11 miles on the previous day we were half expecting some kind of reaction in our rather unfit and aging bodies.
The good news was that we felt fine.
Maybe we are becoming proper walkers after all.
Our start was made in glorious sunshine once again. Apart from a few words with an aggressive and unpleasant driver as we crossed the road to the pier (not to be repeated here but he was exactly as my hand gesture described him) our walk began with positive and happy minds.
We planned to walk relatively slowly to ensure that we did not tire ourselves out. We made steady progress along the very beautiful promenade, passing yet another big wheel next to the pier. There is surely a separate blog post to be written about the plethora of these that we have seen in Sussex seaside resorts this summer. Do people actually use them or are they just for show?
The apartments and buildings along this route were all rather smart and it is clearly a lovely place to live. We stopped at a beach garden after about half an hour or so of walking, full of drought resistant plants in the shingle and with a beautiful wooden bridge onto the beach itself.
I was particularly impressed with Goring-On Sea as it offered something a little different to what we had experienced on our walks to date. We found a beautifully overgrown pathway that ran alongside the beach here, with wide open green spaces that were being very well used when we walked through. This also lead into what is apparently called the Goring Gap, a stretch of beach backed up by a large open swathe of farmland, unusual in an area of the coast which seems to be predominantly residential.
We stopped, briefly, at The Bluebird Cafe, a place that shall forever stay in my memory as having the most undesirable beach huts in the whole of our walk so far. The least said about these the better I think.
Just around the corner we came across some rather assertive and off putting signs, courtesy of the Kingston Gorse Estate. In general, the message said that members of the public can walk on their private land along the edge of the beach as long as they do not cycle, horse ride, picnic, camp or play games or radios. Whilst I sort of understand where they are coming from, this and a couple of other private, beach side estates we came across were a little too Big Brother for my liking.
We shall visit this subject again in the next stage.
After a few more of these greensward paths, which clearly made the walking more comfortable, we made it out onto the main promenade at Rustington. Sadly we were back onto a hard surface again. I had noted in advance that there was a sea front plaque here, recording a couple of famous events that had taken place around 70 years ago. Unfortunately we couldn’t find this on our walk. But for anyone interested in the history of Rustington, back in 1946, and again in 1953, the world air speed record was broken over the sea front by planes and pilots from local airfields.
We had more luck with the other record breaker in this part of our walk. The Littlehampton Long Bench is widely considered to be the longest bench in the UK, and one of the longest in the world. At 324 metres in length it does go on for a bit, and sadly, I suspect most people that were taking a rest on it in the warm afternoon weather were oblivious to the record.
Still, a record is a record.
With the tide in at the time of our visit, the beach here was rather crowded and, it has to be said, not very welcoming. We also found the going quite tough as we reached the end of the seafront and walked along the River Arun, up towards the station and the end of the stage. The weather and school holidays had clearly enticed many out people for a day at the seaside and we were actually quite relieved to reach the relative calm of the deserted station.
All told, this was a pleasant little walk, short but satisfying and completed in beautiful weather. What more could we ask for?
Stage 8 – Worthing Pier to Littlehampton Station
Date of walk - 5th August 2020
Distance walked 8.42 miles / 13.55 km
Floors climbed (using Apple Health app.) 2 floors
Ongoing totals 80.34 miles / 129.28 km / 288 floors
