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Had been to seven sisters country park on saturday. It offers a variety of opportunities to outdoor lovers. But for us the wimpy software professionals, it was just an opportunity to involve in some physical hardships so that the following week we can spend cursing the pain and agony but go around telling everyone what a wonderful experience it was !!

Seven Sisters are a famous series of chalk cliffs by the English Channel. They form part of the South Downs in East Sussex, between the towns of Seaford and Eastbourne in southern England, and are within the Seven Sisters Country Park. They are the remnants of dry valleys in the chalk South Downs gradually being eroded by the sea.

These are the things which you can do at seven sisters and we were determined to do most of them if not all. The first and foremost thing we did was to try to get up early on a cold, rainy saturday morning. After a few false starts and prodding from house mates I made it to the bathroom.

At last we made it to the station for a 2 hr journey and after some confusion about which coaches in the train goes to which place(This was an interesting experience. We were told that the front 4 coaches goes to one place and the last 8 to another !. We were not sure to sit in which coach) we reached the place.

Its a beautiful place with sea on one side and cliffs with forests on the other. We decided to hire bicycles to explore the beauty of the nature (and also the nature of the beauties along the way).

We got the bikes and after a small incident of me using the front brakes rather than the back and causing the bike to do a spectacular back wheely we set forth. The bike ride was a thoroughly enjoying experience riding along the

river cuckoomere. We rode till the cliffs. The cliffs in themselves are majestic and the sea meets the cliff with a roar. The beach is made of pebbles and the sound of the water flowing through the pebbles is something which you have to hear.

We did a bit of climbing and reached atop one of the cliffs. The entire view from the top was spectacular with ocean at one side and greenary at the other, the river cuckoomere flowing to join the ocean, the birds flying, cows grazing and couples making out...er...well suffice to say that it was good. After a ritual of posing for photos we headed down.

Then we took our bikes and headed for the most important thing.....yes to eat...The ride back too was good, with the gentle breeze, the river and birds. It was idyllic, but the only sour note was the pain developing in the seat of my pants due to the fact that its had been years since I rode a bicycle and mind you the seats were pretty hard.

After a english tea at a quaint old restaurant we decided to go to beachy head, which was highly recommended. We climbed on the first available bus for a short journey. But as the bus started moving we realised that in our eagerness to go, we never enquired the bus driver whether the bus goes to beachy head or not?. As it turned out the bus was heading no where near to our destination, we got down with sheepish look on our faces and then decided to head back to seven sisters.

We then went on a hike the forest trails and picked up a trail to walk. After some time of walking, we felt that its not as exciting as a bike ride and there were no wild animals too. We decided to a take a short cut by running down a slope and join the other side of the trail. Let what I am going to say next be a lesson for all of you out there.....One of our group went running down the slope and cleared the drop at the end of the slope. The next person ran down, but only to succumb to gravity and did a spectacular dive at the end of the slope.As he was struggling to get up , I (again proving that I dunno whats good for me or my physical well being) went hurtling down and made it successfully to the end. I then reached my fallen friend who was still struggling to get up and asked the most dumb question 'Are you hurt?'(which most people do). I don't think he has the fetish to lie down in mud and groan, obviously he was hurt. As I started to help him up I heard a cry and turned to see another friend(the last in the group) coming down and do a imitation of a chicken larning to fly and falling near my feet. I went ahead and did the most obvious thing any person at such a situation would do.... Laugh....after a few minutes of intense laughing, me and my other uninjured friend helped the injured to get up and we went ahead with our hike. We cursed the stupid slope and the terrain a lot and never once questioned our decision to take a shortcut and run down the slope....

Thus ended our day at the seven sisters, which proved to be a wonderful and memorable experience where we became one with nature (some of us literally). I wont forget the trip quickly. Even if I want to , the pain in the a** won't let me.....