Littlehampton to Arundel

Littlehampton, a coastal town westward from Brighton was our first stop after leaving Brighton on Tuesday morning. Here we had a walk through the village and then down to and along the river where we were fascinated by all the families lining the river with their specially purchased buckets, nets and lines "fishing" for crabs. Some of them were catching bucketfuls before returning them to the river and either small bits of fish or streaky bacon seemed to be good bait. We thought there must have been a crabbing competition on but no - they were just doing it for fun.

T getting the crack!

The one that nearly got away!

From here we headed for Arundel, a lovely little historic town further inland on the banks of the Arun River, and once a busy fishing village. We wandered about the town, visited the Church and the Cathedral and then the Arundel Castle and Gardens set up on a hill. The original castle was built in 1067 with some of it still surviving although it had a big rebuild between the 1870s and 1890s. It has been the family home of the Dukes of Norfolk and their ancestors for nearly 1000 years. Lots to see but as you are not allowed to take photos it will be difficult to remember. I think we have completed our castle and palace tour for this trip now!

Arundel Castle

Then it was back on the road with all the stop- start holiday traffic - more stop than start with big queues in both directions. We stopped for the night at the Inn Lodge Hotel on the outskirts of Portsmouth, this hotel also being the best we could find on booking.com at 70 pound a night - a notch or 2 up from the previous night - not posh by any means but comfortable and more spacious. Just a pity that the person in the room next door decided to switch their TV on full volume at 6.30 am - we had a news update without having to turn ours on! Len hadn't sleep well in the night as his tummy had been very squeazy since Monday afternoon in Brighton - we wonder if it was the chicken salad he ate there for lunch as that was the only time we had eaten something different - I had soup.