Been busy moving house

The last three months have been fairly busy as we have just moved house, so most of my time has been consumed with this, either planning, organizing, fitting, fixing or decorating. Although there is still a bit to complete, I thought it was about time that I set aside a day for a bit of exercise, exploring and photography.

I decided to take in a walk around the town of Uckfield in East Sussex, the walk would be in both the town and surrounding countryside.

It started from the Eastbourne Road near the Highlands Inn pub, which incidentally always seems busy especially at the weekend. Heading south-east along the Eastbourne road to pick up a footpath that now runs through two housing developments, one fairly recent while the other built back in the mid 90’s.

Woodland Path

Woodland Path Ridgewood Uckfield East Sussex

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Southease to Newhaven via Peacehaven

I messed up my train journey today, as I missed the first train and the second one to Brighton was either running late or I misread the time when I checked this morning. Anyway, the later train got me there with two minutes to spare, luckily I only had to walk across the platform.

So I am on the train just pulling into Lewes when I noticed that it didn’t stop at Southease, a quick check on my phone confirmed that only alternate trains stop at Southease station. So I waited at Lewes for the next one as I didn’t want to walk in the other direction.

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A day out in the capital London

I do enjoy a day out with the camera, so a trip to the capital city was the plan, with a view to walking along the northern bank of the river Thames towards the Palace of Westminster, better known as the houses of parliament. From there crossing Westminster bridge and walking along the Southbank to the Millennium Bridge, back over the river to St Pauls and then down to Tower bridge and finally back to Blackfriars. That should take up most of the day allowing for a few stops for photos.

The journey started with a train ride to Blackfriars station, on arrival I decided to have a bite to eat saving some space in my bag for my jacket, that I certainly didn’t need. It wasn’t a gourmet feast just a roll and a packet of crisps followed by a couple of wine gums.

The walk down to Westminster was fairly quick, the reason being that I drunk too much water on the train up and was desperate for the toilet. I would have used the toilets at Blackfriars, but it was just my luck that they were out of order, so I had to wait until reaching Waterloo (oh how appropriate). At least they didn’t charge unlike at Blackfriars where they charge you 30 pence, the problem is I can remember when it was a penny, hence the saying “spend a penny”.

Just after Waterloo station, I saw Princess Anne being driven in a car that was escorted by several Police outriders and two other vehicles, she was probably only going down to the supermarket 😉.

I crossed the river via Westminster bridge hoping to capture a long exposure shot of the Parliament buildings, only to find they had the builders in with lots of scaffolding up. I do now recall a news article about the work required on the crumbling building, so I just took a quick shot with the camera phone instead.

The Palace of Westminster

The Palace of Westminster Lumia 930 4.46mm @F2.4 1/1200 sec ISO 64

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The Ouse Valley Way (from Southease to Lewes)

After having to abort a walk yesterday because of rather windy and wet conditions, I thought I would try again today as the weather forecast didn’t predict any further rain. This yet again involved a train ride in getting to the start of the walk, as there are no direct trains to Southease it meant into Brighton and onto another train along the coast.

Arriving at Southease I joined the South Downs Way for a few hundred yards, crossing the swing bridge before turning onto the path that follows the course of the river into the historic town of Lewes in East Sussex. There is a path on either side of the river but I chose the west side of the river, the reason being when I arrive at Lewes it would be nearer to the station.

The swing bridge, as far as I know, hasn’t been opened for many years, probably because no large boats travel up the river anymore.

The Swing Bridge at Southease on the river Ouse.

Sony RX100 MkII 10.4mm @F6.3 1/400 sec ISO160

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Along the coast from Shoreham to Brighton

The majority of the images you will see in this post will be long exposures using the Olympus Live Bulb feature, with a combination of Lee Filters Seven5 Neutral Density (Big and Little Stopper), sometimes with a Polariser and or Graduated filter.

The start of this walk involves public transport by train, so a change at Brighton boarding an ageing diesel train on the line out to Worthing. So the plan was to get off at Shoreham and walk around Shoreham harbour, well that failed as I turned the wrong way and ended up on the wrong side of the water. I couldn’t be bothered to walk the mile or so back to start again so carried on, maybe that will have to wait for another day.

The path takes you across the harbour to a sluice gate, arriving at the beach I found that the wind was certainly turning the blades of the wind turbines.

Wind turbines

Olympus EM-1 17mm @F11 4.0 sec ISO 200

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A Walk to the Chattri

The Chattri is a First World War Memorial, built on the site where a number of Indian soldiers, who fought for the British Empire had been cremated. For more information and its location check the Wikipedia entry on the Chattri.

The only way to get to the Chattri is by a bridleway either from the south or the north of the downs, I approached it from the north walking up from Underhill Lane near Clayton village. It’s a fairly steep path onto the downs rising about 150 metres. This was just going to be a single visit, however when I arrived the light was pretty flat and overcast. I was hoping to see a fairly moody sky as the forecast mentioned rain, but it was not to be, just cold and blustery weather (nothing new there being so elevated).

I took a few images but I didn’t capture anything outstanding, so I packed up with a view to returning the next day. I did note in all of the images that I took that day when examined in Lightroom were the nasty gremlins known as dust spots, something that I have had trouble with the A7R almost from day one.

Chattri, Brighton

Sony A7R 28-70mm @28mm f16 1/25s ISO 100

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