A local site had a quote from a guide book to the area posted up saying" Brighton and Worthing beaches are typically crowded in Summer but move further West and quiet, clean beaches are plentiful towards Littlehampton."

My initial tought was "Bollocks are they!" Little'Ampton or L*A as it is known around here is like a mini Blackpool or Skegvegas and not even as classy as Worthing or as culture-vibrant as Brighton.

Anyway, undaunted it sounded like a good excuse for a ride to try and find these fabled "lost" beaches so I did.

Today was a good day for this particular ride being warm and Sunny, so any uncrowded beaches would be uncrowded for the right reasons, ie not because it was pissing down or perishing cold.

I took the back roads through the South Downs over to L*A but not because I wanted to thrash the GSX. This wasn't a fast bike ride, more a riding a fast bike on slow roads. It's also a good reminder that there are quiet places around Sussex, it's not all rock shops and fish'n'chips.





L*A was just as I remembered, crammed with tourists and (worse) locals eating overpriced watery ice creams, screeching, turning into pink lobsters and stumbling into the road off the crowded pavements full of smokers outside the boozers.

I didn't stop, but instead headed Eastwards towards East Preston. Where I found the first surprise.

Not even off the beaten track but just off the seafront road was this little gem of a beach stretch!





The reason for it being decidedly uncrowded was that there wasn't a car park or anywhere to park at the side of the road legally for quite some distance. This means (shock, horror) that folk would have to walk over half a mile to get to it! Hence they didn't! Chalk one up to the guide book and nil to cynical me.

The coast road disintegrated into a spider's web of private roads but I persevered and wound my way on through Rustington, heading coastwards on Avenues wherever I could and stone me I found another one within the boundaries of Rustington itself.



OK here's where the batteries expired on my camera so there are none of the beach itself over the dune I snapped the bike in front of, but a beach with scant population looks pretty much like the last one I snapped anyway.

So, 2 nil to the guide book but a good result for future reference.

Nice, Ged!
Try to get over the Arun to the West Beach at Littlehampton:

Great pics fella, next time charge your batteries and take more! Whenever I go for a ride I usually stick close to the coast to try and discover new (to me) seaside villages.

rechargables don't last 2 minutes in my old-tech camera. I fitted a brand new set of lithium cells last weekend for the gig photos.

When I handed the camera to my blonde female friend I told her" This button takes the photo when you press it and this one turns the screen off so the batteries don't run down while it's not being used."

I guess that 2 instructions proved too much! A set of lithiums normally last for weeks!

Great pictures.

Well done, only coastal riding I get to do is around Lake Michigan... well I've never been around it completely, it is a very large lake.

Yeah a trip entirely round the shore cities of Lake Michigan would be something else.

I've visited a few, but in hired Buick LeSabres not on bikes, sadly.

Thank you. Really interesting.