Saturday morning started off rather early with a train ride down towards Reading and a decent cycle round Swinley Forest. It has been a few years since I was last there, so good to go back. Over this past winter The Crown Estate (the owners of Swinley Forest) had put a lot of money and ongoing work into developing the forest and building the trails, with a single direction cycle trail loop starting and finishing at The Look Out Discovery Centre. They've also blocked up all the other tracks to help preserve the forest and bird life in there, which makes sense, plus I think the newly built single tracks are a better option. I only did the intermediate Blue Trail, which was brilliant, but I can tell I'm a bit out of practice with my mountain biking single track skills.

After just a single lap around the Blue Trail, I trained it back to London to quickly pack and meet up with Uns at Clapham Junction. From there we caught the train down to Eastbourne, about an hour and a half away. The hotel wasn't too far from the station, and on our walk there we managed to catch the end of the Eastbourne Sunshine Carnival, with dozens of floats and walking entries including bands paraded from Fisherman?s Green along the prom and down to the Western Lawns, with hundreds of people lining the street to cheer them all on. We had booked in at the Lions Mansion Hotel, which was very basic but alright for the couple of nights, and fairly decent value for money. We had only decided on Wednesday that we'd be going away, so not too bad for a last minute booking. At least we had a pier and seaside view from the hotel room, even if it was out the side window at a bit of an angle.

After dropping our bags, we headed back downstairs for a walk and find some dinner. There were an insane number of Italian restaurants scattered around the place, they clearly love their pizza and pasta down there. We decided to try out La Locanda Del Duca Restaurant which was fully booked but managed to fit us in between two reservations, meaning we had to be quick. Even though we had to rush a bit through our meal, the food was fantastic and would certainly go back if I was down in Eastbourne again.

After dinner we took a walk along the pier and then back along the seafront. Just as we turned off the pier along the sea front, we noticed the full moon had just risen and was brilliantly positioned just next to the silhouetted pier above the horizon. As the moon rose further, it created a fantastic glow and reflection on the sea, and I managed to snap a picture of some guy sitting on the beach in the moon light. Photo credit to Una to be honest who spotted him and suggested the picture :)

Yesterday morning after a late breakfast at Fusciardi's, we caught a local bus over to the Seven Sisters Cycle Company to rent a couple of bikes for the afternoon. From there it was a lovely chilled cycle out to the beach, about a mile and a half from the Visitors Centre. Unfortunately it was a pebble stone beach, but with the sun beating down and the sound of the sea, there really was nothing to complain about. We lay around in the sun for a good while before decided to head a bit back and up to the top of the cliffs. It took a while and a bit of hike/walk to get to the top, but the panoramic view from up there was lovely.

With the wind picking up quite a bit at the top, we headed back down to drop the bikes. Before catching the bus, we stopped in at the Exceat Farmhouse for coffee and scones, then made our way back to Eastbourne for dinner. We'd both settled on the idea of Fish 'n Chips last night for dinner, and after having walked past the Holiday Inn Fish Restaurant the previous evening which was busy, we decided to return there. The food there was tasty and just what we were after. Once done with dinner, we headed back to the pier to watch and photograph the moon rise, and only after standing in the cold and wind for ages did we realise it was an hour later than the previous night. So we gave up and headed back to the seafront for a beer in a warm hotel. I then quickly popped back out down to the promenade and grabbed some pics of the rising moon, which had a beautiful and brilliant red tint to it. And just as massive and full as the previous night.

This morning, after an early start to see the sunrise, we checked out the hotel and went in search of breakfast. We stopped in at Central Eating Cafe but were unbelievable slow at serving. They did warn us they were busy, but didn't realise it would be that slow! Anyway, after something to eat we headed down to the beach for a little while then decided to catch the hop-on-hop-off sightseeing bus. From Eastbourne it headed out towards Beachy Head cliffs where we hopped off and decided to walk across towards the lighthouse instead of going by bus.

We took a slow walk from where the bus dropped us over to the Belle Tout Lighthouse, with a few stops on the way to chill out in the sun and take in the view. Belle Tout Lighthouse is a decommissioned lighthouse and landmark located at Beachy Head. It has been called "Britain's most famous inhabited lighthouse" because of its striking location and use in film and television. In 1999, the Grade II listed building was moved in one piece to prevent it from succumbing to coastal erosion.

After the lighthouse we continued along the cliff walk and down into Birling Gap where we grabbed an ice-cream then hopped back on the sightseeing bus which looped back round to Eastbourne pier. Since we were on holiday, we figured we'd grab another ice-cream, this time from Fusciardi's where we had eaten breakfast yesterday and sit and enjoy it on the beach. Got to love early summer holidays :)

After some time on the beach, we decided to head back to the hotel to collect our bags which we had left there and make our way up to the train station and back up to London. Since neither of us were all that keen to make dinner, we decided to pop up to Skehan's pub up on Telegraph Hill and go for Thai at Chai's Garden. It was a nice, chilled way to end off the back holiday weekend. Unfortunately it's now 3 months until the next one... but hopefully this may be the start of summer!