Student Bloggers

As a Nashville Native, I hadn’t been adjusted to London’s rainy, autumn weather. Who knew that saying yes to this spontaneous day trip would help me escape the city’s notorious grey skies.

My flatmate, Aline, and friend, Zacc, invited me to their planned hike. I am not a huge hiking fanatic. And considering that I am a fairly Type-A person, the fact that this trip was very last minute worried me. Nevertheless, I thought that if I didn’t go now, I may never get the chance to walk the English coast before returning to the States in December. So, I accepted, booked a train ticket, and committed to walking at least 7 miles the next day.

Our first train left St. Pancras International at 9:30 am, and we made our first stop in Brighton a little over an hour later. Here, we walked around the town before catching our last train at 11:20. The little time we had to explore the city only made us want to begin planning our next day trip. But we all looked on and out of the train window. Soon the horizon faded from cityscapes, to the English countryside, to finally the blue hues of the sea.

Now at the Seaford station, we ventured from the town’s center toward the Seven Sisters Cliffs. Aline, who is much more experienced with long treks than Zacc and I combined, suggested that we take a more scenic route to see a bit more of the coast before reaching the seven peaks. Though this decision added another mile and a half to our journey (which took almost two hours to walk), we were able to sit on the beach, feel the water, and enjoy a part of the hike we would otherwise not have experienced. Sitting on the stony beach, admiring the sounds of waves crashing, we realized that we hadn’t even considered going for a swim. I guess we didn’t want to get our hopes up too high due to receiving rain in London and the chance of light rain during our hike.

At this point in reading, if you haven’t looked up the Seven Sisters Cliffs yet, almost every blog or travel website may advise against taking this hike on a rainy day, as you would be pretty exposed to the elements. By some stroke of luck, we had picked the only sunny day in between a rainy week and scheduled rainy weekend. So after some time of soaking up the sun on the beach, we made our way towards the Seven Sisters cliffs at around 1:00 pm.

The first peak surprised us with how steep it quickly became. Retrospectively, though, it wasn’t bad at all, and the view you receive at the top is worth some momentary bits of struggle. Here, you are able to admire a view of the entire town of Seaford— the center, the golf course at the top of the hill, the few cars in the narrow streets, and where the sea meets the shore.

After enjoying the view for a bit more— and, if we’re being honest, catching our breath— we continued on the coast and further along the hike. The path was well-marked— sometimes bordered by a fence that had livestock on the other side. If you plan to go on the Seven Sisters Hike, I would definitely recommend a pair of comfortable and durable shoes, as you will be potentially walking on rocks, grass, sand, and uneven land. Additionally, at this point of our hike, we realized that though we chose a beautiful day to explore Seaford, the wind can make the hike a bit cold. This is especially true the higher you might go in elevation.

As mentioned before, the path we took added a bit more steps and time to our journey. After passing the first cliff, and walking on more flat land, we descended to the beach on the other side. Here, there was a body of water that prevented us from proceeding immediately to the cliffs. So, we had to go around what had seemed like a never-ending path. We passed by more livestock, as well as interesting plants and rock formations; we even saw a seal close to shore. We made it around the body of water and up a few more meters in elevation at around 3:15 pm. We were making for great time and received another great view of the very beginning of the path along the distant shore that led us to where we were.

At the top of another hill, reflecting on how fast the time has gone and catching our breath once more, Aline, Zacc, and I had realized just how small we really are. Not to become too philosophical, but I think at this point of our hike, we were just three college students at the edge of a whole world we hadn’t seen. Aline is from Germany, Zacc is from Singapore, and I am from the U.S. No matter how much travel we all might have done in the past, there is still so much more we have not seen. We’re all from different parts of the world, and who would’ve thought that all of the paths we had taken would lead us exactly to where we were.

We soon continued our hike, going up and down cliffs of different sizes and altitudes. Please take note that if you are afraid of heights, most parts of the cliffs do not have fences. As an avid climber, I found the height to be quite high, but this did not stop others from sitting close or on the cliffs’ edges. But despite the fact that we had been walking for more than 4 hours total, the views had seemingly become better and better. With each new step, we discovered a new perspective.

We had only reached about 5 of the 7 cliffs when we decided that it might have been time to walk back towards the main road and catch a bus back to Seaford Station. We all bought flexible returns back to St. Pancras International, but we didn’t want to potentially get back home too late since our train ride was around 2 hours long. So at around 4:45 pm, we began to walk back— more inclines and declines— towards the body of water we had walked around. At 5:25, we reached the bus stop and made it back to Seaford station at 5:45.

We reached Brighton an hour later and decided to catch the next train back to London after sunset. We walked towards the sea and walked a bit down the pier to admire the pink skies after a full day of beautiful views. Overall, I am so glad I went a little outside of my comfort zone and said yes to this spontaneous trip to walk the English coast. I would definitely recommend anyone to do the same and see a bit more of England outside of its cities.