B7 – Seeping Cliffs Beneath Sea Cliff Bridge **

Difficulty: some narrow paths above rocks and sea. Bits and pieces of hazardous rusted metal.

Summary: Many saunter along the top of the Sea Cliff Bridge, gazing down at the surf crashing on the rock shelves far below and out to the horizon with its distant ships. Walking beneath the bridge is a different experience. Towering grey pylons, dumped rubbish, graffiti, loose, seeping coal cliffs and a single, rain dependent, small stream.

Directions: As for B6, but instead of crossing the road to the escarpment side and ascending the concrete spillway at the pine tree cove, turn left, jump over the fence and head down a broad, easy track to the coastal rock shelf below, then follow the bridge pylons around to beneath the southern end of the Sea Cliff bridge. At one point compelled to stray up the slope on the escarpment side. Follow a grassy stream bed back to the pylons. Continue south past evidence of old coal mining activity (framing timber sticking out of the shale walls, old mesh fences, twisted bits of rusted metal) to a large section of low, blocky cliff. Walk past old steel ladders leading up to mine entrances and then back down to the coastal rock shelf. 25 minutes from the cove.

Point of disappearance: nothing worth ascending – and all too difficult in any case.