Day 40 - Sandgate to Eastbourne - ride totall 3,086 k, 19,319 m

A "Bacon Butte" at 7:00 a.m. on the Sandgate Promenade with a nice cup of tea was how we started our ride today about 5 km into it.

From there the majority of the ride was alongside the foreshore in fact we said four our navigation today all we need to do is keep the sea on our left. There was a steady Southerly wind blowing today and that was the direction we were heading so it was a good headwind all day long, so just as well there were no major hills.

Half of the beaches we saw today were pebbles and the other half sand and although only around 20 there were a few hardy souls in for a swim and at one point I'm picking it was the "Bluetits Chill Swimmers" out for their daily dip (I kid you not with the name).

Peter was particularly keen to check out Rye as back home in Melboourne that is where his holiday home is - a quaint, cobbled street, 16th century town - in fact the Mermaid Hotel proudly displays a sign saying it was "re-built in 1420" - me saying I did my kitchen up in 2003 doesn't really even get a look in does it?

We had a pastie and sausage roll for lunch there however they were nothing to write home about although it was a proper cup of tea with milk - something that is not allways very easy to buy in Europe I found.

The observation for today was - even though it's Summer (it's not hot and it's windy) the English were still enthusiastically taking themselves down to the stony beach and laying out their blankets and deck chairs and making the most of it all - good on them.

We saw a lot of boats today - small inshore fishing boats and pleasure boats - sadly it looks like the commercial in shore fishing is not as successful as it once was as there appeared to be more derelict fishing boats than functional ready to fish boats and like some parts of NZ each boat either has a winch or simply a rusting crawler tractor there on the beach to pull the bot u on to the stones and out of the water - to aid that process each of the boats have outrigger steel keels to allow the boat to be dragged up on to the beach.

Hastings was in full flight with the summer time attractions and amusement parks operating and just like back home the ice cream purchased down there on the foreshore is high on the pricing side of thngs.

We made it to our old school Eastbourne Hotel (think Fawlty Towers - however nothing has been done to it since they stopped filming) here on the foresaore by 4:00 p..m. I'mnot complaining as the price was okay and only one of us sleeping on the floor on the thermorest tonight.

Now it's time to head out and get a haircut - hopefully not at the price that the barber in Germany charged me.



















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