20250920 The Brighton Coast

The Brighton Coast

We followed the coast along the beaches of the Brighton area on the way to Arundel. Brighton is one of the most famous beach-side cities because of its easy train ride from London and its landmark pier. We could see a few groups of pale but intrepid people standing in their bathers (cozzies), trying to muster the nerve to get into the water. The beaches along the south coast are made of thumb-sized, rounded stones – flint – and although they’re not painful to walk on, they’re hard to move on, and the beach slants deeply into the water. That is, it’s hard work to walk up and out of the ocean, harder still if there are waves. We could hear a few shouts from the groups at the water’s edge, but that may have had more to do with the beers in their hands, mid-morning. (See photo.)

A few kilometres west of Brighton we stopped for a coffee beside an old-but-still-used dry dock and lock. A tugboat was being serviced, you can see it in the photos, below.

Volunteers were positioned along the boardwalk there to support the London-to-Brighton 61 mile off-road fundraising bike ride. It’s Europe’s largest mountain biking charity ride and there were over 2000 riders raising over 582K BP (> $1M CDN) for the British Heart Foundation. They had a spectacular day for a gruelling ride.

Then, in the distance, we saw a Canadian Flag. A memorial was dedicated to the thousands of Canadian soldiers who were stationed in this area during World War Two, training for the Dieppe and Normandy landings. To this day, there is an organization – https://www.canadianrootsuk.org/ – dedicated to re-uniting the resultant ‘war children’ with the Canadian fathers who went home after the war. (Those ‘war children’ are now all, of course, over eighty years old now, and their fathers and mothers mostly gone.)

A little further along, we were excited to see a sign for an RNLI station and store. The RNLI is a charity that saves lives at sea in the UK and Ireland, and around the world. It provides 24-hour rescue service, seasonal lifeguards, water safety advice, and international support to tackle drowning. We have tremendous respect for this organization and had a wonderful visit with the volunteers manning the shop. (And we bought John a shirt. I’m sure it’ll show up in subsequent photos.) In the distance, far out in the ocean, we could see miles and miles of windmills.

We then cut north, reluctantly saying goodbye to the seashore just west of Worthing and started riding uphill toward Arundel on the recommendation of our pal, Brian, who spoke glowingly of the castle, and an extraordinary antique store on the main street. We were in for a real treat!