Hello and welcome to the 2nd instalment of She rides and Reviews. Today I will be reviewing the High and Over Trail in Seaford.
This morning, as I contemplated the ill-advised mid-week beverage consumption of the night before and watched the grey clouds gather in the sky, I wanted nothing more than to curl up on the sofa and call today a rest day. The catch with that is, due to our household schedule and the fact that I am avoiding weekend outings until I am fully vaccinated, I would be looking at another 6-day stint of being indoors without setting foot outside. I’m not generally averse to a bit of rain, but my electric scooter is. My chronic pain & Hypermobility conditions also seem to require me to be at a constant 20°c- 25°c, my body seems to have decided it would like to be treated like a tropical palm in a Kew Gardens green house. Much to the utter disgust of said conditions, my mental health needs me to have some time outside regardless and she is the big boss of everything. She must be obeyed at all costs or the entire system derails, and I’ll be binge watching all 8 seasons of “Homelands” on Netflix again before I know it.
So I began weighing up my options and trying to think of a place that was a short “walk” that could be done between the forecast rain showers, and High and Over was the perfect spot for it.
High and Over is a lovely short trail I estimated it to be about 360m more or less. What I love about it is that it feels like somewhere that wouldn’t be accessible, like a hidden place that is being discovered.
The car park is small and free to park for everyone. I have never been there and not found a space, but as I mentioned before I have avoided the outside world on the weekends for some time now so it may be different on Saturdays and Sundays. Some days there is a little café trailer that sells coffee and other bits to nibble on. Sadly though, no toilets.
The car park itself has solid flooring but is a little uneven, nothing to write home about if you are on wheels though. There are three paths leading off of the car park, much like the 3 little pigs only one is really suitable for the job.
The first path to the left is very small and bumpy and has no paving so would be a little treacherous for wheals.
The second path that comes out of the middle of the car park is ok. It has solid flooring but is a bit narrow and not as even surfaced as one would ideally like.
The third trail is to the right of the carpark and is about 1.2m wide, a little bumpy but definitely doable on a normal scooter/wheelchair.
There are a couple of spots where you can stop and take in the majestic views of Cuckmere river, Cuckmere haven and the downs. These really are some of the best views in Sussex and well worth checking out even though the walk itself is short.
Sadly though, just as you are about to reach the best part of the walk and really the nicest place to take in the views, the bloody path turns into a muddy bumpy steep trail for about 20m! This kind of thing really boils my blood, why do these places insist on keeping us wheeled users out of the best parts of our countryside!?
Luckily for me I always have my wonderful partner with me, so I felt brave enough to gingerly attempt the Black ski slope that I was presented with, safe in the knowledge that if I needed to I could walk a few feet to the bench in front and my able bodied partner could take over the slalom of lumps and bumps. I made it down and back up again in one piece though and was able to enjoy the wonderful scenes in front of me. I felt ok to attempt the bumpy route today because my pain levels and general wellbeing were in a good place, it has to be said that on many other days being rattled down that slope would have caused me some pain and could easily have injured my hypermobile joints.
If you can get down there, that really is the end of the accessible trail, we could go no further from there as the rest of the path was only accessible via stairs and there was no paved path after it.
Here is a video of as much of the path as I could shoot. It is sped up to last a minute I wasn’t zooming around at high speeds! Haha!
All in all, it is definitely worth a visit, even if you can’t get down to the last viewing area, there are some lovely viewing points along the trail.
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