Hastings - May 2006
A few days in with Dawny in Hastings. I've never been there before and was very impressed. It's not seedy (unlike the warnings I'd had beforehand.) However, St Leonards on Sea, to the west of Hastings was looking very run-down and is not recommended.Excellent company, superb crazy golf and a nice hotel - what more can you ask for in a short break? A day trip to Dover Castle perhaps? We did that, but I put the pictures on a separate page. A good Curry perhaps? The Chatsworth Hotel has a superb Indian Restaurant.
Note - some of the pictures on this page have been taken with my phone and have been selectively enlarged, so the quality is not up to the exceptionally high standards that you're accustomed to.
A bit of mixture of pics that didn't fit into the other two sections.
Hen at work contemplating the immanent holiday.
London's Charing Cross Station.
The view from our hotel room at The Chatsworth.
ADI's driving school.
Gaylord's Hair Centre.
The plot of land near the station may not be quite the bargain that it appears at first site.
Hastings Pier. Now that the heart of Hastings has returned to the Old Town, the Pier is curiously positioned nearer to the shopping areas than the seaside amusements.
Art.
The rustiest fire-hose ever?
The uneasy smile is because the wind keeps lifting Dawny's skirt.
Dawny's not amused.
That's better.
Hen attempts an arty shot.
Dawny gets bored.
That's my home.
A lone remaining chair at the end of the day.
Another day and the stress of going out on a pedalo.
The end of a nice holiday. After this we decided to go for a final round of crazy golf.
The Old Town
Some of the Old Town was destroyed after the war to make way for the main road along the coast - what a mad idea. What's left of it is beautiful and is once again the centre of activities in Hastings. The main shopping has moved to the new town centre, but amusements, museums, fresh fish shops and cafes have made the Old Town lively again.
Dawny and Hen in front of the famous tall net sheds. Hastings has no harbour, but still has a small beach-launched fishing fleet.
The east cliff railway takes you to the country park on the top of the cliff.
The railway is incredibly steep. Apologies for the photo quality of these photos which were shot through a clear plastic safety shield
Looking down to the net huts and the beach.
The west cliff railway takes passengers up to the castle. Compared to the East Cliff it has a relatively gentle slope through a tunnel in the cliff face.
On top of the West Cliff looking over Old Town in the valley between the cliffs. You can just see the top of the East Cliff railway on the other side of the valley.
The view of the sea front and the pier from the East Cliff. Old Town is below and to teh right.
I took lots of photos of Hastings Castle, but most aren't very interesting. Much of the castle disappeared into the sea hundreds of years ago.
The castle with modern Hastings in view and Old Town behind.
Dawny in the 'dungeon' caves below the castle.
Hastings has a superb crazy golf 'complex' on the sea-front, a stone's throw from the old town. There are 3 courses to choose from -
- Adventure Golf - This is the daddy with lots of landscaping and water features. We played twice during our stay.
- Mini Golf - no obstacles, but with carefully constructed greens and min-bunkers. Played once.
- Mini-golf - The traditional seaside course with windmills etc. We were going to play once during our stay, but we had a late night game on our final day.
The golf 'complex' is open every day of the year, except Christmas day. During the summer it is open very late (was it 2300 or 0000? I can't remember now.) HIGHLY Recommended.
Adventure golf is very popular and there's quite a bit of queuing during peak periods. Tip - go for the pre 1000 'early bird' discount.
The mini golf is much less busy and is actually very good. The greens are cunningly sloped.
Dawny is poised, ready to spring into action.
I think she did well on that shot.
The classic windmill on the classic crazy course
I think I hit the sails after the shot was taken.
Adventure golf again, but Dawny's wearing a different outfit, so it must be a different day.
We decided on a late night round on the Crazy golf before leaving. My golf and photo shots aren't very good because it was dark and I'd had too much wine to play well.
Dawny can play golf in those boots, even after a few drinks. It was very impressive.
The end.
