Seven Sisters

You might be wondering what in the world this post is about. Seven sisters? Flip flops? Sisters wearing flip flops? Well, let me tell you.

On the last Saturday before school started, we carved out time to go down to London LDS temple that is about 2 hour drive. Since we were already way-way south of our house, we figured we might as well keep going and visit the coast, specifically this place I wanted to visit for a while--Seven Sisters Country Park in Seaford. The southern coast of England (the South Downs) meets the sea in a spectacular way in this area--chalky cliffs that drop off into the English Channel. 

This is the type of scenery you see near Dover (the famous cliffs of Dover) but here, away from the business of Dover ferry port and Dover Castle, nature takes over bringing out the best to our eyes. 

Once we parked at the designated parking lot we had to follow the footpath to the coast for about 30 minutes. Lots of people were visiting the beach this day as it was the UK's Bank Holiday weekend. The walk was pleasant with sheep and hills on the side until you finally reach a sudden drop off to the beach. The kids immediately ran to play with pebbles and water, so we barely managed to snap a family picture before things got...interesting:) We are so colorful:)

Another closer shot of the chalky cliffs. You can walk for miles along the beach east of here. 

So...there was a river coming out of the fields and rushing into the sea. A few people were walking around in the water with their shoes off. Some were attempting to cross it as it connected two sides of the beach (so you could keep walking along the cliffs to the west). The water didn't look any crazier than your average stream that was about knee-deep. Alex loves this sort of stuff, so we let him go play in it...wearing his flip flops to protect his feet from the rocks. 

Here he is all happy and wild.

He made it to the other side of the stream okay, but fell over a few times and was kind of pushed by the fast water stronger than I liked. 

He was still playing in the water when suddenly his flip flop fell off and quickly floated away. Now he had no protection for one of his feet. By then, the stream seemed to have become a rushing river although still narrow. Alex started to cross it, but it was just too strong and scary (for me to watch) and he only had one flip flop. So we had this idea...to throw his hiking boots over to the side where he was and then have him walk upstream to where he could finally cross over to our side. We did throw the boots, he did get them without an adventure and left to find a way back to our side "the dry way". Since we didn't know how far he had to go, Robert went along our side to meet him. 

And that was the last time we saw them on the beach!

Apparently, there was no way for Alex to cross over to our side for a couple of kilometers, so they had to walk all the way back to where we we started our walk and even further. It was crazy! And they were tired (Alex walking with no socks wearing his boots). So they decided to just hang out on their own by the trail waiting for us to return.

In the meantime....I had no cell phone reception. So the whole time that Robert thinks that I know where he is, I actually don't. I was not really worried but I really had no idea what was taking them so long. 

We decided to not wait any longer and explored the beach on our own.

Katya with her broken collar bone:)

Two grasshoppers. 

After an hour or so, we figured we better wrap this up. So we left Katya on the beach, just in case Robert did show up with Alex and didn't know where we were, while Mark and I walked up the cliff.

This is the view from the cliff. 

Mark was so funny! It's such a different dynamics when I have just one child hanging out with me. 

Can you spot Mark?

This is the way we went up the cliff, but Mark said we should take a different way down because we can die if we go this way. So we walked a bit longer but on a much safer path. 

It was getting late and we headed back to the parking lot (another 30 min walk) when I finally started getting texts from Robert. We were happy that the big boys were okay but so sad that they missed all the fun on the coast! We were very happy to reunite with them at the beginning of the trail and go have dinner at the village pub. 

So lesson learned: don't go out into the rushing water wearing flip flops:)

Anyway, this was a beautiful place! Hope we can go back.

Lyana.