Shoreham-by-the-Sea, England

February 2018.

When you slowly open your eyes after a good night’s sleep on a lazy Sunday morning and the bright sun shines on you through your bay window after weeks of dull and grey winter weather, you feel upbeat instantly. It’s just amazing how a bright sunny day can lift up your spirit and make you feel blissfully happy for no particular reason.

Today was such a day. So, I jumped up from the bed deciding not to waste such a rare sunny day idling at home. Destination: Shoreham.

Shoreham is a mere 20minutes drive from my place in Burgess Hill, where I live at the moment. It is cradled between the South Downs on the north and the Shoreham Beach on the English channel to the south and the river Adur flows to the sea with the Adur valley on its both sides. It has a very fresh vibe about it and most importantly my all time favourite French Patisserie is right there on the beach.

A quick breakfast with an almond croissant and a coffee in the Patisserie with the warm sun bathing us through the café window fills us with the right energy to stroll along the beach.

The patisserie is on the corner of a cross road from where there is a glass bridge that crosses the river and takes you to the beach. The harbour generally sees a lot of ships and boats docked there. You may find few rowing boats cruising through the river with the tide flowing in and out to the sea. The other side of the beach is lined up with small shops and cafes and few residential flats. The fish and chips shop stands out in my mind for some reason; probably the idea of fish and chips on the beach with a gentle sea breeze in my curly hair appeals to me inside. You will find lots of cyclists and dog walkers along the road. It all looks very charming and quaint. When you cross the river and go to the other side to the beach, you will find number of house boats lined up along the river. These house boats are quite old, one particular boat dating from the World War II period, another one having a wind charm made of a piano top lying abruptly on the side of its boat-garden. Strangely people do live in these boats; I imagine the lifestyle would be quite different from usual inside these boats and also it would be quite cold, I think. 

Walking all along the beach to the west from this point, you head towards the Worthing pier. A narrow pedestrian/ cycle path leads you to the pier. Few swans and ducks and cormorants stroll around this bit along with the pesky seagulls.  Green fields and small naturally formed pools of water along the path to the right and the beach to the left make it a pleasant walk. You will also find a band stand like a memorial for the Wars, few cafes, a beach side gym and so on.

Walking towards the Worthing pier, if you take a turn inland along the river, you will get to a huge olde wooden bridge, and then continuing further along the riverside would take you up on the South Downs. This is one of my favourite walk – along the river Adur, getting up on the downs to the little pig farms and back on the beach. Green rolling hills, blue sea, flowing river, unnamed churches, lazy little pigs in the farm, bushy shady trees along the river – it’s a crowd of every pleasant thing in a single walkway. I remember doing this walk on one scorching hot summer day. Beautiful as it was, I had to stop beneath the wooden bridge panting from the heat and drinking lots of water. My brown skin got a very dark tan along the shape of my t-shirt and the tan stayed for months after that.

If you walk along the beach to the east from the Shoreham Harbour point, you will get to the Shoreham fort, known as the Shoreham Redoubt. There is some wall remnants at the moment but originally it was a 19^th century fort designed to defend against the sea invasions by Napoleon III. If you walk few yards more, you will get to a fishing harbour. Many fishermen stood along the span of this concrete pier with their fishing lines in the water and lots of freshly caught fish in their buckets. My fish eating Bong blood likes the smell of it. Continuing on this way, there comes another café called the Carats Café – my favourite breakfast place in England J It is a cosy café right by the beach with a open-ish front glass exterior that lets you sit there, have your English cooked breakfast and admire the sea. They also keep few chairs outside to sit giving it a nice summery feel. I remember sitting in the beach in front of this café with my friend and aiming a pebble to knock another pebble in the distance and failing every single time for hours. Just by the side of this café, two huge wind turbines keep rotating their blades in a lazy leisurely way of their life.

Speaking of windmills, a new windfarm has been made operational around the end of the last year (2017) off the coast of Shoreham. It would supposedly generate 400MW of power which is equivalent to the electricity to power up 290K homes. On a clear sunny day like today, the wind turbines across the sea are clearly visible against the blue sky.

My friend and I did quite a bit of walking and with the breakfast in tummy burning out now, we headed back. On one sunny day in 2017, we had cycled along the whole stretch from Worthing pier in the west, crossing the Shoreham along the beach passing by the green patches, the little parks, the surfing bay and the yummy cafes right down to the Saltdean in the east. Saltdean - Another nice coastal place to pen down soon; Till then, Sayonara from the Sun in the Shoreham-by-the-Sea.