We spent 4 days over Easter 2021 walking the Sussex Ouse Valley Way. "The Plague" is still a significant thing, so there was no accommodation, the pubs and restaurants were not open and public transport was not an attractive idea. We used 2 cars; leaving one at the end point and one at the start point of each day's walk. It took around an hour for us to move the cars at each end of the day. We left the house around 9:00am, carried our packed lunch with us and we were home before 17:00 each day.
Day 1: Lower Beading to Ardingly Reservoir (19km)
We left the car in Village Hall car park and walked to Ardingly Reservoir, there is a large free public car park behind Ardingly college. It was a great day with much variety along the walk. The walk was generally well signed, and there were lots of walkers about. You do not feel you are walking alongside a river.
Day 2: Ardingly Reservoir to Newick (14km)
A shorter walk than yesterday, made longer when we were not attentive of our route and followed the "Sussex Border Path" by mistake for a while. We had to back-track to correct ourselves. Later on, we started following a forest drive rather than the marked path, adding yet more miles to the day.
We parked on a residential side street in Newick.
Day 3: Newick to Lewes (17km)
A bit more road walking today. The river is becoming more prominent now; it was little more than a stream at the start. There is a long term car-park opposite Tesco in Lewes.
Day 4: Lewes to Seaford (16km)
From Lewes, the river is quite large. The first part was spent walking alongside the river on the raised bank, which was quite cold and windy. The village and church of Piddinghoe is very picturesque.
Our final car-park was at Tide Mills just east of Newhaven.
The walk is 66km in all. We will have walked more than that as we made mistakes and walked to the car at the start and end of every day. Hil measured our steps as 97,000 over the 4 days.
