七姊妹巖Seven Sisters

如果你沒有駕車，但又想沿著海岸線欣賞英國的美麗景色，我會推薦英國南部伊斯特本的七姊妹巖。
If you don’t have a car but want to go on a breath taking coastal walk in England, I highly recommend Seven Sisters, an undulating walk from Eastbourne south of England.

從倫敦維多利亞車站搭火車到伊斯特本需要大約一個半小時。抵達伊斯特本後，你有兩個選擇。你可以從火車站步行到 South Downs Way ，這在比奇角崖的腳下。這段路程需要大約40分鐘。你也可以先從火車站乘搭12號公車到七姊妹國家公園，然後從那邊步行這段12公里的路程回到火車站。公車車程需時約20分鐘。而這次我的旅程是從火車站出發，因為那個週末我總共走了48公里，一直去到布萊頓。
The train journey from London Victoria Station to Eastbourne takes about an hour and half, and once you arrive you have a couple of options. You can start the walk from the station, heading towards South Downs Way which is the foot of Beachy Head. That takes about forty minutes.  Alternatively, you can catch the number 12 bus from outside of the station and go directly to Seven Sisters Country Park and walk the 12km back to Eastbourne. The bus journey takes about 20 minutes. When I went, I walked from the station as that entire weekend I walked 48km all the way to Brighton.

到達South Downs Way時就要開始努力，從山坡往這160米高的比奇角崖向上走。雖然有點吃力，但當你到達崖頂時看到眼前Birling Gap 及七姊妹巖美景，剛才流過所有的汗水都是值得的。從相片中你可以見到有一座燈塔，我們從比奇角到這裡走了大約一個半小時，之後再往前方的七姊妹海灘再多走約兩個小時。整段路程都是沿著懸崖邊走，所以海洋及前面一片綠野的美景盡入眼簾，令人心曠神怡，很舒服。
The hard work starts once you get to South Downs Way as that’s where the 160m ascend up the cliff to Beachy Head starts. This is also where you are rewarded with the first sight of the magnificent Seven Sisters ahead of you, and from there on all the hard work walking up and down the hills are worth it. To give you a bit of idea, it took us about an hour and a half to get from Beachy Head to the lighthouse that you see in the centre of the photo below, and another two hours or so to get down to the seashore by Seven Sisters further ahead.懸崖旁是白色的，因為它是由白堊岩組成。經過長年累月的侵蝕和雨水沖洗，有部分可能會有剝落的危險。儘管如此我們亦很勇敢及小心奕奕地慢慢爬到懸崖邊拍了幾張照片。
The entire walk is along the edge of the chalk cliff hence the white cliffs. This can sometimes be quite dangerous as parts of the cliff may fall due to erosion or after heavy rainfall. Still, that didn’t stop us from crawling as close to the edge as we dared to take photos.經過燈塔後我們再行多一小時到達Birling Gap，在哪裏稍作休息。其實已走的路程不算遠，但因為當時跟其他登山隊友一起，一邊行一邊聊天，還要停下來欣賞風景，所以行程用了比平時多的時間。
After the light house, it took us over another hour to get to Birling Gap where we took a short break. The distance we walked wasn’t actually very far, but I was with a walking group and we were chatting and enjoying ourselves as we walked that’s why it took quite a while. If we had walked briskly we wouldn’t have been able to spend so much time soaking in the spectacular view.七姊妹巖有七個高低起伏的山坡，因此而命名。走了幾個山坡之後，有一條樓梯可往下去海灘。這是一個鵝卵石海灘，可能離七姊妹國家公園比較近吧，所以有不少人在這裡玩耍。我們在那裏流連一陣子，然後繼續走當天最後的五公里路，前往我們當晚的民宿。
Seven Sisters is so called is it has seven undulating hills. In between the first few hills there is a staircase that takes you down to the seahore. It’s a pebble seashore and quite popular with people who probably walk here from the Seven Sisters Country Park. We lingered around for a while, watching other people enjoying themselves before we left as there was still another 5km to our hostel for the night.如果你到這裏遊覽，七姊妹國家公園將會是你的終點，你可以從這裏乘共車回到伊斯特本。而我，就在第二天會繼續步行往布萊頓。下次我將會跟大家分享這一段非常美麗的路，暫時先在這裏跟大家分享幾張照片。
If you decide to do this walk, this is where it finishes before you catch the bus back to Eastbourne. For me, I continued walking the next day to Brighton. Next time I’ll share that part of the beautiful walk with you. In the meanwhile, here’s a few teaser photos.