Road Trippin‘ England #2 – Hiking the Seven Sisters

Blogpost contains unsponsored ads (Restaurants etc.). These are all my personal recommendations based on my experience in England. I don’t get paid for mentioning any of these places.

 

Hello and welcome back to my Road Trippin‘ England series!

If you have no clue what I’m talking about, make sure to check out the first post of this series where we took the ferry to Dover and started our road trip (click here).

After we had left Folkestone, we headed towards our next destination:

The Seven Sisters

The Seven Sisters are a series of chalk cliffs, situated in the South Downs National Park between the two coastal towns, Seaford and Eastbourne.

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We parked our car in a car park in a street called Crowlink Lane. From there we took a twenty minute walk to the cliffs across the meadows of the national park which are home to sheep and cattle since the area is used as a farm.

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The view from the cliffs is simply stunning. However, be careful and stay away from the edge- as solid as they may seem, these cliffs are naturally unstable and cliff falls happen.

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Yup, these cliffs are definitely naturally unstable. 

Tea Time

If you need a break from hiking, you can enjoy a coffee or tea, as well as other foods and drinks at the Birling Gap Café next to the National Trust Birling Gap and the Seven Sisters.
On our hike we haven’t seen too many people, only at the Tourist center that I’ve just mentioned. As far as I can tell, many people just like to park their car near the cliffs and enjoy the view, only some people actually like to hike the cliffs.

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After a quick coffee break, we went back to the car and enjoyed the walk being surrounded by baby sheep with their mothers and curious calfs observing us through the fence of their meadows.

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A curious baby sheep approaching a calf. 
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Poor little baby sheep got scared when the calf snuffled. 

I loved hiking the Seven Sisters and I will definitely come back (with better footwear)!
Thanks for reading.

xx, Sophie

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How I fulfilled my Dream and went to Yosemite National Park, CA

I’ve been waiting for this for years. Yosemite National Park has been one of the greatest travel destinations for me since I got in touch with the work of Ansel Adams, a landscape photographer who shot many great landscape photographs.

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Half Dome, on my way to the campground

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I think it was in 2012 when my mother told me about Ansel Adams‘ work. I was thirteen years old and became really interested in photography and cameras when she introduced me to his photographs.
It didn’t take me long to find out about the National Park in his pictures.
Big granite monoliths, rocks so high your neck will hurt the longer you watch their summit, but definitely worth it!

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Half Dome

For years, Yosemite National Park has just been an unapproachable-seeming dream, until the day my Ballet teacher wore a Shirt from Yosemite in class and I almost couldn’t believe her when she told me she went there. That was in 2016 and since then I knew:
One day I will go there, one day I will see Half Dome, El Capitan and the Tunnel View with my own eyes.

Two years later, I applied for the Camp America program, got hired as a camp counsellor and decided to travel to San Francisco and Yosemite, even if I had to do it alone.
So I booked a campground, deciding I would travel there, no matter what.

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My preparation mainly included bringing a tent, which was far too big since I was hoping I would find people in my summer camp who want to join me, and a sleeping bag.
When it turned out that nobody would join me on my little four-day-adventure, I got a bit scared, since you need to take a subway, a train and a bus to the park and my campground was not in Yosemite Valley, but a 30 minute bus drive away.
To be honest, I almost quit, since I was by myself and I had to carry everything by myself and didn’t know where to leave my luggage in San Francisco.
However, I was too committed and decided that these little travel issues would not let me wait another three years till I would come back and try again.

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So I got up at six in the morning, took the subway, took the train, took the bus, waited three hours in Yosemite Valley for the bus to take me to the camp ground and finally arrived around six at Crane Flat Gasstation.

The camp ground was a five minute walk from the gas station and when I walked down the road, I realised that this campground was not really supposed for people without a car. The ranger at the entrance was a lovely woman who was obviously amused that a 19 year old girl with only one Carry-On back pack (my tent was inside, as well as my sleeping bag so I was actually just carrying one backpack) was checking in.
She asked me if I would, at any point, have a car and I answered I wouldn’t.
Smiling, she handed me my paper hanger with my booking number, showed me on a map where my camp space was and added „You don’t need to take the map, it’s probably annoying to carry around, you will find the spot without it“ and I just thought: ‚That lady clearly understood my packing issues :D!‘

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-day of arrival-
to be continued…

 

PS: Some of these pictures where taken during the bus drive to the campground, which explains why some of them are a bit blurry and have reflections in them. Additionally, I was not able to take the pictures with my reflex camera since it broke at the beginning of the summer. I took most of the photos with a bridge camera and also used my phone.

Camping with Kangaroos |Crowdy Bay National Park

When I think of our road trip in Australia, the first thing coming to my mind is the kangaroos in Crowdy Bay National Park. We camped in the park for two nights and were surrounded by kangaroos all the time. They came so close and sat two meters in front of our tent, they even turned their backs on us. It was great!

Well, as you can probably imagine, I took tons of pictures of these funny, cute creatures. They usually are really friendly but don’t get too close, they can kick you! The red kangaroos in central Australia are even able to kill you. These ones were not that dangerous, fortunately 😄

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I hope you enjoyed looking at these pictures.

Have a great week!

Sophie

A Morning in Lamington National Park {German}

My dear readers,

today I will announce a new „project“ of mine, which is expressing feelings and moments through writing.
Two weeks ago, I have been to Lamington National Park in southern Queensland and it was a magical experience. The nature was really beautiful, when we woke up in the morning, there were Wallabies all around us, the campground was a bit remote which enables you to connect with nature and to embrace all the beautiful things this national park has to offer. As you probably know, German is my mother tongue, which is why my english writing is more „basic“ than advanced. This is why I wrote my „creative“ text in German. I hope you still want to have a look at the pictures, I took them during our hikes in Lamington and in the early mornings when we had breakfast with the Wallabies.
For my English readers: Stay tuned, my next post will be in English as usual, for the Germans: I hope you enjoy my little writing!

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5:53, Lamington National Park Queensland. Der Boden des Autos ist so hart, dass ich nicht mehr liegen kann. Trotz der Decke und dem Handtuch was sich unter meinem verspannten Rücken befindet, schmerzt mein ganzer Körper und ich beschließe aufzustehen. Die Fenster des Autos sind beschlagen und etwas klopft am Metall. Ich wische das Kondenswasser an der Scheibe vom Rücksitz weg und erblicke ein kleines Wallaby welches neben unserem Auto sitzt.

Meine Füße sind kalt, ich schlüpfe mit meinen Socken in meine FlipFlops und überlege noch wie komisch es aussehen muss, als plötzlich das Wallaby zwei Meter neben mir an mir vorbei hüpft, anhält, mich anschaut und weiter in den Busch springt. Momente wie dieser sind einfach wertvoll denke ich.

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Ich laufe den nassen Weg entlang zu den Toilettenhäuschen, als der von uns benannte Ufo-Vogel, ein Vogel der sich haargenau anhört als würde ein Ufo landen, laut schreit und ich mich augenblicklich wie in einem Film fühle.

Es ist noch sehr kühl, so kühl dass ich mir meine Ärmel über die Hände ziehe und ich eine Gänsehaut bekomme. Ich lege mir meine Kapuze um den Hals, wobei ich das Stechen meines Sonnenbrands am Hals und Nacken spüre, welchen ich mir an der Gold Coast zugezogen habe. Wer hätte auch gedacht dass man sich trotz T-Shirt dermaßen den Hals verbrennen kann, immerhin halten wir uns jetzt schon eine ganze Weile täglich in der Sonne auf.

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Die Sonne sucht sich langsam den Weg durch die grünen Blätter der Bäume und lässt mich leicht blinzeln, zu gerne würde ich davon jetzt ein Bokeh Foto machen denke ich.
Ich atme tief ein und es duftet wie an einem frischen Frühlingsmorgen, der Tau noch auf den Blättern und die Vögel geben ihr Konzert.

Auf meinem Weg zurück höre ich das merkwürdige Klopfen erneut und meine Beine lassen mich ein wenig schneller zurück zum Auto laufen. Ich blicke langsam um die Ecke und entdecke einen Truthahn der an unserer Mülltüte herumpickt, daneben auf dem Tisch sitzend, ein runder grauer Vogel mit einer gelben Kehle und einem gelben Bauch, welcher den Truthahn interessiert beobachtet. Als sie mich entdecken laufen und fliegen sie beide weg.

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Zum Frühstück kochen wir Haferflocken auf mit Banane und Erdnussbutter. Es tut so gut etwas warmes im Magen zu haben. Wir sitzen beide in unseren Campingstühlen, eingeschlungen in unseren Decken, blicken auf das dampfende Frühstück und ich überlege ob es nicht immer so sein könnte.

Während wir darauf warten dass die Sonne über den Baumen aufgeht, bekommen wir besuch von zwei Papageien. Sie setzen sich auf die offen stehende Kofferraumtür, ihren Kopf seitlich zu uns geneigt und schielen auf unser Essen.
So langsam verstehe ich warum man wilde Tiere nich füttern soll, denn nach zehn Minuten sitzen die zwei immer noch da und warten gespannt dass wir unser Essen für einen winzigen Augenblick aus den Augen lassen.

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Wenn ich darüber nachdenke dass uns nur noch wenige Wochen Reise bevorstehen, werde ich leicht melancholisch. Kann dieser Traum denn wirklich ein Ende haben? Diese angenehme Freiheit die man als Reisender hat, die interessanten Gespräche die man mit Menschen aus der ganzen Welt führt und diesen Schub von süßen Endorphinen und heißem Adrenalin den man erlebt wenn man gerade auf einem Boot über den Ozean braust, sich die Sterne anguckt, oder morgens im National Park zwischen Papageien und Wallabies frühstückt? Ich will nicht dass es aufhört.

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Have a magical week!
xx, Sophie