Shoreham by Sea

Mid Sussex Link part 1

11 October 2024

Shoreham harbour to Devils Dyke

This trip was quite an endurance exercise in this direction. Almost all up hill for 9km. I imagine it’s much easier the other direction. Would make a good day out getting the bus to the top of the dyke (mostly only runs weekends and holiday) and then walk back to Hove. You can jump on a bus once you get to Mile Oak area or wander all the way down to Hove Lagoon.

The route start seems to be a bit inconsistent depending on where you look. Either at the coast by Hove Lagoon or at this corner of St Richard’s Road and Wellington Road.

If you want a nice cuppa before heading off there was a nice looking cafe next to the station just up the road. Though I did not try it this time as I started later in the day than I would have liked.

The first leg of the path is a rather nice walk out of town up a footpath alley with plenty of trees, hedges and walls that provide cover on a blustery day. The main roads you have to cross have fairly good crossing points. The local shop over the bridge from the station will be the last shop you will pass for a while, so grab anything you need here.

Towards the top of the path before hitting the open countryside it can get a bit muddy underfoot if there has been rain recently.

As I burst out into the countryside by the electrical pylons all you could hear was the chatter of the small birds perched along the wires. This is one of my favourite walks as the views of Mile Oak on the right and the rolling hills towards Shoreham never seem to fail to make stunning vistas.

Once again can get a bit muddy in places if it had rained but mostly fairly easy along this little hill… Though you do have to watch out for rabbit holes as there are quite a few around here. Also watch out for slugs as I’ve seen some quite large ones around these parts. As well as plenty of birds, mostly pigeons, crows and gulls but there are a few birds of prey too.

If you stick to the trail it will take you down a fairly steep and sometimes slippy bridleway down to just above the farm. Though you can also take a slight detour from the path down a very short but steep hill down to the cafe for a pit stop. As the next leg is quite gruelling this could be worth the detour.

The path up from the farm starts off very steep and it’s a bit of a slog but if you run out of breath just stop for a bit and take in the stunning views. After the initial steep bit the path levels off to a more easy climb up the hell… But the climb is fairly continuous all the way up till you get near Fulking Hill.

There was quite a puddle next to the gate at the top of the path. At this point the path once again bypasses the pub at the top of the dyke and caries on to Patcham but for me I called it a day and headed toward the pub for refreshment and calling it a day as the sun was setting within the hour. So I took the old railway route back to Hangelton and jumped on a bus back to town.

My thoughts on this part of the route is that I think it would have been a lot easier in the other direction as you would have instead been going downhill most of the way. Also there are not many places to stop and rest except the farm cafe and pub at the top of the dyke. Though if you do try it this way then at the top of the steepest hill up from the farm, if you turn right there is takes you back down to Foredown tower. After that you are fairly committed to pushing on to the dyke.

Was most certainly a good workout and took me a good 4 hours to get to the top and another hour to walk back to the nearest bus stop… Though there is a bus that run up to Devils Dyke but it mostly only runs on weekend and bank holidays. So you can catch that back.

If you want the easiest way to do this walk I would say get the bus to Devils Dyke and walk down to the coast. It will be an easier walk but you will have the sun in your face most of the way down, if the sun comes out that is. Also remember the weather at the top can change quickly and can be quite different to what it feels like at ground level so make sure you have the right clothes with you and plenty of water if it’s hot.

Next part I will attempt to do the bit between Devils Dyke and Ditchling

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England Coast Path: Shoreham by Sea

21 July 2024

New camera time, got a Panasonic S9 as a lighter version of roughly the same camera as the larger S1. It’s about 1/3 the weight but also light on features. There are the things you can appreciate are good for size and weight reductions like lack of viewfinder and second SD card slot. The screen was reasonable at framing shots but hard to check the focus. Now the auto focus is great on these camera and I’m sure with a bit of playing I’ll get the settings and experience to nail it right most of the time.

The harder restriction to understand is the time limit on recording video. You get between 10 and 20 minutes max recording depending on the settings. It really feels like it’s put in there just to make you consider one of the more expensive models. Not seen anywhere yet that explains why they have this limitation. Though they do stress that the camera might stop sooner if it overheats so I would presume there is overheating issues if used for too long. After all I think about 1/3 of the weight on the S1 is the cooling so you can use it continuously. It would have been nice if they could have at least had one video setting that would let you record as long as you want, even if it was 720p or ultra low colour depth to minimise heat generation. I guess they could add something like this with a firmware update…. But I doubt they will as they will be much more likely to do the S9 v1.5 in a year or two and hope people buy the upgrade.

If I read the manual right you can monitor the video via HDMI for about 10x the time. So am wondering if I throw a Raspberry Pi and video capture card into a box, can I record the video for longer? If so it really seems like a made up limit. Will certainly be investigating that a bit more.

Still as my plan is mainly to do little clips put together and I have the S1 too, it’s not too much if an issue for me. Still has the great image quality and is relatively easy to use. Will be my throw it in the bag ‘just in case’ camera for the near future. Still need to get a low profile lens to make it really portable.

So to test it out I took it to the seafront and headed down the England Coast Path which runs from Shoreham by Sea to Eastbourne. Not so much wildlife as it was the end of one of the hottest days of the year and I just missed low tide when the bird come down to feed. One day I want to jump on a bike and do the whole trail from Shoreham to Eastbourne.

On the video there are some nice shots of boats coming back to the harbour and some of a nice fat bee gouging on the sweet pollen. Shot quite a bit more but a lot of it did not hold the focus on the bee most of the time. Need to play with the focus setting for this sort of macro stuff. I love that the auto focus has detection for humans, animals and cars. Though it would be nice to tag a point and have that keep in focus. Maybe it has that already and I need to discover it.

The photo on the website were shot as jpeg and untouched off the camera. Though scaled down to more web friendly sizes. I’ll typically shoot on RAW + Jpeg so I can tweak them if needed or just post them up if the jpeg is fine.

Shoreham-by-Sea – River Adur

14 June 2024

A trip up the River Adur estuary near Shoreham-by-Sea. For the wildlife there is plenty of birds and I heard rabbits but did not see any. There is also the local Brighton City Airport with regular plane take off and landings. The lovely railway bridge over the river along with the wooden foot bridge and further up the river the road bridge.

The footage is from a Panasonic S1H and it’s slightly graded.

Had the camera just over a week now and really like the quality, a real step up for what I have used before. There is so much more headroom with the footage to play with it in post production. The plan is to use these nature shoots to get to know the camera and have some fun at the same time. As well as a bit of exercise.

Think I need a better tripod, especially as it can get a bit breezy on the coast around here….. Especially with the English weather. We are in June atm with March weather.

Oh well as my old camera tutor used to say. “Don’t let the weather stop you going out and taking photos”

I also have a new site anaturesite.uk

I’ll be throwing up photos and extra info about my trips on there if you want more. Hoping to throw up one of these 20min silent videos once a week and do some longer ones with audio when somewhere quiet. This one you can mainly hear the plains, cars and people on the public footpath.