Seven Sisters, seven secret letters, one family adventure to the sea
A self-guided family adventure
Each of the Seven Sisters is guarding one secret letter. Your team walks the flat Cuckmere valley from Exceat to the sea, solves a clue at every stop, and collects all seven. Put them together to crack the secret word of Cuckmere Haven, and every explorer earns a certificate with their name on it.
One price for up to 6 people · instant access · 30-day money-back guarantee
How it works
Your trail link arrives by email straight away. Open it on your phone and it saves itself for the day.
Start at Exceat and follow the flat valley path. At each of the seven stops, read the story, look around and answer the clue.
Every right answer reveals a golden letter, with a "did you know?" and a team challenge to go with it.
At the beach, put your seven letters together, crack the secret word and claim a certificate for every explorer.
The real route, drawn to scale. Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors.
The Seven Secrets of Cuckmere Haven
The trail follows the flat valley path from Seven Sisters Country Park at Exceat down to Cuckmere Haven, the shingle beach where the Cuckmere River meets the sea, right at the foot of the first Sister. It stays away from the cliff tops the whole way.
On the way, children spot the river's famous loops, hunt for chalk and flint, watch for little egrets on the marsh and meet Haven Brow. Every clue is about something they can see around them, not a sign or a plaque.
What you get
Stories · clues · golden letters · bingo · map
A phone app that works offline, with no download from an app store. Stories, clues, letters that fly into the seal, team challenges, explorer bingo and a trail map. Share the link and everyone can follow on their own phone.
Twelve A4 pages: explorer briefing, map, one page per stop with tick-box answers, the secret-word seal, explorer bingo and an upside-down answer key for grown-ups.
Crack the secret word and every explorer gets their own print-ready certificate with their name in gold, up to 6 per trail, grown-ups included. A painted panorama of the valley, the river's loops and the seven Sisters, drawn to their real relative heights.
The Explorer Trail
30-day money-back guarantee. Not what you hoped? Get in touch for a full refund. Payments are processed by Stripe; your card details never touch this site.
Designed for safe exploring. The trail keeps to the valley path and the top of the beach. It never sends anyone to the cliff edge or the foot of the cliffs, where chalk can fall at any time, and it never asks you to cross the river at the beach. Read more on cliff-edge safety and tides at Cuckmere Haven.
It is written for children aged about 5 to 11 walking with their grown-ups, and older brothers, sisters and grandparents join in happily. Younger children enjoy the challenges and the letter hunt with a grown-up reading the clues.
The trail follows the flat valley path from the visitor centre at Exceat to the shingle beach at Cuckmere Haven, about 2 km each way (4 km return), ending with a short, steeper slope onto the beach. Allow 2 to 2½ hours with all seven stops, the challenges and the walk back. The path is pushchair-friendly on dry days; the beach itself is shingle.
Up to 6 explorers, adults and children together. Everyone can follow along on their own phone with the same link, and at the end each explorer gets their own certificate with their name on it.
No. Open your trail link once while you have signal, at home or in the car park, and the app saves itself on your phone. It then works on the path with no signal at all. You can also print the booklet and do the whole trail on paper.
No. The trail app has everything on it. The 12-page booklet is optional, for families who like ticking boxes and writing letters in with a pencil.
The trail finishes at the top of Cuckmere Haven beach and does not need you to walk along the shore, so it works at any tide. Never try to cross the river at the beach, and check the tide times if you plan to explore further.
Start at Seven Sisters Country Park at Exceat, on the A259 (postcode BN25 4AD), where there is a car park, a café, toilets and a bus stop. There are no facilities at the beach, so go before you set off.
Yes. Everything arrives as one link by email, so you can forward it to the family who will use it. Names and dates go on the certificates after the trail, not at checkout.
Every trail comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee. Get in touch through the contact page for a full refund.
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