My helicopting, quad-biking, cocktail-boozing, fine-dining birthday in Brighton/Sussex
What a day! Some luxury birthday presents including a future trip to Minecart Madness near Snowdon. After breakfast I was blindfolded (ooh, kinky) and bundled into the car for a mystery tour by my missus. We drove for about 20 minutes and to my slight disappointment had turned up outside an office. When I got out of the car I realised we were at Shoreham Airport. As we walked towards another office I saw the exciting sign of Helifly!
After being greeted by the pilot and a few moments hanging around watching the seagulls getting moved on from the airfield we were treated to an aerial tour of the south coast past Brighton, turning inland after Rottingdean, over Lewes and headed back to Shoreham over the South Downs.
Still with a smile on my face and my head still in the clouds we headed over to Devil's Dyke pub. Within the 7 years I've lived in Brighton, I'd never visited this landmark. Beautiful the scenery and the pub food was delicious. The complimentary bottle of champagne was a surprise too for both me and Kerry.
Quad-biking
Three belly-busting, flavoursome courses later we were on the road again towards Findon, north of Worthing at the South Downs Gun Club. Lucky they didn't ask for a breathalyser test as I'm sure I would have been well over the legal limit. However, for our quad-biking experience it was all off-road in the rolling South Downs' countryside with the gold light of the sun setting. Great fun despite my bike breaking down halfway.
BYOC Brighton
After an hour, it was a quick rest at home and a change of clothes for another surprise in town. BYOC is a relatively new bar that serves your own alcohol but is professionally mixed into the cocktails you love. Kerry has sneakily brought four bottles of booze for us, all partly filled thinking we'd hardly get through it all. How wrong we were!
The barman looked after us for the booked two hours and even arranged for another vodka bottle to be bought for us. It all had the secretive feeling of a speakeasy with a prohibition-like cellar, with another seating area downstairs, a mini-cinema showing old 1920's movies and really friendly-talkative staff. The first cocktail really surprised me as I normally hate cucumber but was far away my favourite (though by late evening my burps could only taste of it). By the third or fourth boozy cocktail it was all getting a little blurry, slurry and sweary. Even the delicious pizza-flavoured popcorn couldn't soak up the alcohol. After our two hours we had to rebottle our last cocktails for a (hair of the) doggy bag.
64 Degrees
The last mystery tour stop was at Brighton's newest restaurant 64 Degrees. Despite being extremely beyond half-cut the bar-dining experience was perfect. Instead of traditional starters, mains etc. the chefs at 64 Degrees serve up smaller portions so they can be shared or sampled. Depending on how greedy or hungry you are there's some great dishes to choose from. My personal favourite was the Kimchi Chicken, the Korean national dish (pictured above).
However, my sweet tooth will argue that the sticky toffee pudding and Kerry's rum bear jelly were equally fantastic. Loved the seating arrangement overlooking the chefs at work seeing all the dishes being prepared right in front of us.
Amazing day and feel extremely spoilt- thanks@lilmismayhem
After being greeted by the pilot and a few moments hanging around watching the seagulls getting moved on from the airfield we were treated to an aerial tour of the south coast past Brighton, turning inland after Rottingdean, over Lewes and headed back to Shoreham over the South Downs.
Still with a smile on my face and my head still in the clouds we headed over to Devil's Dyke pub. Within the 7 years I've lived in Brighton, I'd never visited this landmark. Beautiful the scenery and the pub food was delicious. The complimentary bottle of champagne was a surprise too for both me and Kerry.
Quad-biking
Three belly-busting, flavoursome courses later we were on the road again towards Findon, north of Worthing at the South Downs Gun Club. Lucky they didn't ask for a breathalyser test as I'm sure I would have been well over the legal limit. However, for our quad-biking experience it was all off-road in the rolling South Downs' countryside with the gold light of the sun setting. Great fun despite my bike breaking down halfway.
BYOC Brighton
After an hour, it was a quick rest at home and a change of clothes for another surprise in town. BYOC is a relatively new bar that serves your own alcohol but is professionally mixed into the cocktails you love. Kerry has sneakily brought four bottles of booze for us, all partly filled thinking we'd hardly get through it all. How wrong we were!
The barman looked after us for the booked two hours and even arranged for another vodka bottle to be bought for us. It all had the secretive feeling of a speakeasy with a prohibition-like cellar, with another seating area downstairs, a mini-cinema showing old 1920's movies and really friendly-talkative staff. The first cocktail really surprised me as I normally hate cucumber but was far away my favourite (though by late evening my burps could only taste of it). By the third or fourth boozy cocktail it was all getting a little blurry, slurry and sweary. Even the delicious pizza-flavoured popcorn couldn't soak up the alcohol. After our two hours we had to rebottle our last cocktails for a (hair of the) doggy bag.
64 Degrees
The last mystery tour stop was at Brighton's newest restaurant 64 Degrees. Despite being extremely beyond half-cut the bar-dining experience was perfect. Instead of traditional starters, mains etc. the chefs at 64 Degrees serve up smaller portions so they can be shared or sampled. Depending on how greedy or hungry you are there's some great dishes to choose from. My personal favourite was the Kimchi Chicken, the Korean national dish (pictured above).
However, my sweet tooth will argue that the sticky toffee pudding and Kerry's rum bear jelly were equally fantastic. Loved the seating arrangement overlooking the chefs at work seeing all the dishes being prepared right in front of us.
Amazing day and feel extremely spoilt- thanks
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