What with birthday parties, descending relatives, a weekend away, Scotland trips and foreign holidays all out of the way (for a short while) we finally had time to get back to our Coastal Path.  We are now travelling for over 4 hours to get to the coast and back each time we venture down for the day.  I was, I admit, feeling a little as if I couldn’t be bothered with the drive, particularly on a Sunday when I had work the next morning.  However, there is no place in our purpose for dark thoughts like these, and as soon as we arrived back at Littlehampton the coast showed me why.  The tide was out – our favourite time to walk along flat expanses of exposed sands.

Early morning at low tide is surely one of my favourite times to walk.  There are only a few other people about at this time and the world is quieter, sharper and crisper at this time of day.  We were presented with the two-tone sand and shingle beach sometimes darkened by the shadow of a passing cloud; the mingled greens of the treeline; the occasional burst of colour from a passer-by.

I was enjoying everything today, from the macro to the micro.

When the day is clear and you can see for miles, it is worth remembering that the world is made up of some very small parts indeed.

Points on this part of the walk (copy and paste the co-ordinates into Google Earth):

• Beach West of Littlehampton:  N 50° 48.015 W 000° 32.700

Walk #56 Statistics (of which this post forms the first part):

• Date of Walk: 28 July 2013
• Walk #56 total distance covered: 8.30 miles
• Coast of Britain Walk Total Distance Covered: 462.52 miles
• CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO INTERACTIVE MAP!!!