Another sunny October day – a bit of a chill in the air but still shirt sleeves weather.

Today was to be our longest walk of this trip at about 8 miles. We were starting from Alfriston and walking over Windover Hill to the village of Jevington on the other side where we hoped we would be able to get a decent lunch. There is only one pub, the Eight Bells, and we have no idea what it's going to be like.

Walking on the South Downs Way, which runs across the white footbridge over the Cuckmere River, we started up the slopes of Windover Hill. Only a short way along the path we thought that the view was so nice that we stopped for a picture.

There was Alfriston nestling in the valley with the church facing us and the ridge that runs through Firle Beacon beyond. Breathtaking!

As we climbed higher the views opened up even more. We were planning to pass directly above the Wilmington Long Man but before we reached that point we met some horse riders coming down. This path is a bridleway so can be used by both pedestrians (us) and horse riders (them).

A little further up the path and we could see the Long Man cut into the hillside ahead and when we reached the point directly above his head we took this picture.

The view from the village of Wilmington is much better and there is a small free car park there. The funny white squiggles just above the bottom of the picture, in the shadow, is the Long Man with his legs running (not literally) down the slope and his arms outstretched to the sides.

The slope below, at this point, is really very steep and not far off the vertical which is why there's a fence along this section of the path.

Shortly after passing this point we reached a small gate and stile which Amanda is negotiating here.

Now what about that view beyond? Well we though it was pretty amazing.

Our intended route from this point was straight on in the direction in which we had been travelling but Amanda 'collects' Ordnance Survey trigonometry points and she could see one on the map about a half mile off our route so we turned left to find it.

And here it is complete with Amanda and that stunning view at the back. She wanted to take it (the trigonometry point, not the view) home but I suggested that it might make the rucksack a little heavy and so she agreed that a photograph would be a good substitute.

On our way back from that little detour we met some of the local residents.

Have you ever noticed that sheep have rectangular irises in their eyes?

The path we were going to take towards Jevington was barely visible on the open grassland up here but there were marker posts at fairly widely spaced intervals to assure us that we were on track.

Can you just see the two small figures on the near horizon with Firle Beacon behind them? It gives an indication of scale. The path, incidentally, is immediately to the right of the marker post. You should be able to see a slight difference in colour compared with the surrounding grassland. I did say it wasn't easy to see.

This is me taking the picture that I've just been talking about. That patch of blue on the right-hand edge between the sky and the land is the sea somewhere around Beachy Head.

I think I've said this before but I'm still going to say it again – the scenery up here is stunning and I'm going to bore you with yet another picture of it.

Soon after we started to descend towards Jevington and caught a glimpse of the village and the top of the church tower – the little dark red triangle of roof just left of the centreline with a little patch of smoke behind it.

We arrived a the Eight Bells just before 1:00 PM – time for lunch.

Nice place, nice people. We needn't have worried about the food as the choices and the quality were both excellent and we would recommend it without hesitation.

We didn't want a full blown lunch, we have yet to walk back remember, so we had a starter and a dessert but no main course. Amanda remarked that her starter could easily pass for a main course, which it could have. They don't do 'small' here! The trouble with sitting down to an excellent lunch is that it has to end sometime and the walk back beckoned.

We were taking a different route back. A path we had walked about 19 years ago when we drove into the area from our hotel near Hastings to Jevington and walked to Littlington about two miles from Alfriston.

Down the hill, kink left and up the other side. It's all ups and downs around here. In fact the Downs are up – if you see what I mean. After a mile and a half we had Alfriston in sight once again. The farthest edge of the farthest ploughed field would be where we started up Windover Hill earlier this morning.

We arrived back at the Star Inn at the end of an absolutely super day and the end of our all too short trip. This is an incredibly scenic area and, no doubt, we will be back.

The next day we had a relatively straightforward drive home. Till the next time.