Day 110 – Bridlington to Mappleton

Mike arrives at Bridlington from York around 10:45 expecting an hour’s wait for John, Ben and Gary on their connecting train from Sheffield and Doncaster. The expectation is only two-thirds realised because John misses the connection at Sheffield in circumstances which are sufficiently controversial to result in him watching CCTV footage of the train’s departure with station staff – without any apparent resolution of why it left without him. However, with his arrival in Bridlington delayed by another hour, he suggests that the rest of us should start walking without him with a view to meeting up somewhere on the route to Hornsea/Mappleton later in the day. Mike, Ben and Gary accordingly set off at noon from outside Rags, and two suspicions are quickly confirmed. Firstly, there will be no problematic cliffs for Ben – indeed, with the tide out, there’s a lot of beach action in prospect. And secondly, John’s suggestion that we don’t wait for him will serve to get his competitive juices flowing in terms of hot pursuit: when he is informed that we have walked 3.34 miles during the first hour his reaction is along the lines of “How am I supposed to catch up with you if you walk that quickly?”. Anyway, it’s difficult to give much detail of the first 12 miles because there are a limited number of ways to describe sun, blue sky, and beautiful (and often deserted) sand. Suffice to say that we’re able to stay on the beach past Wilsthorpe, Barmston and Skipsea all the way to Hornsea where we arrive at 3:50 and decide to wait for John, with some liquid refreshment, on the veranda of the Marine pub. Our wait is a mere 15 minutes. John has accomplished the 12 miles in just over 3 hours, to include apparently some de-shodding and re-shodding for an unanticipated paddle. It’s hard to say whether this is more or less remarkable than the fact that, according to his logger, the walk along a flat beach has involved ascents of 705 feet. We’re staying in Hornsea tonight but, in order to reduce any time pressure of getting to Withernsea tomorrow, we’re walking another 3 miles or so this afternoon to Mappleton. Again, we’re able to do this along the beach before taking a short track and lane leading to the Mappleton Tea Rooms which we reach (closed) just after 5:20. We manage to contact a cab company in Hornsea, and a car arrives to pick us up from outside the tea rooms about 15 minutes later and takes us back to Hornsea and the Victoria & Albert B&B. We arrange to be collected at 8:15 the following morning, check in (and settle in) at the B&B, and return to the Marine – which is just across the road – for supper. A rather unclear meal offer proves to be, in essence, two for the price of one which results in the food element of the bill being about half of the drinks element. Sadly, the fish and chips prove to be nowhere near as good as those which we’ve had on our last three trips in Redcar, Robin Hood’s Bay and Bridlington. However, there are two similarities with our evening in Bridlington namely that the wine consumption includes no Shiraz and that there’s some football on TV involving Belgium – this time against Japan in the World Cup, with Belgium winning 3-2 (having been 0-2 down with 25 minutes to go) in the round of the last 16