Day 48 - West Huntspill to Weston-super-Mare

Excellent - and early - brekker, with a bit of flak directed at the one person who goes for just the "full-ish" English, rather than the Full Tudor English. We're collected by Clare at 8 a.m. and she takes us back to the Parrett end of the path at West Huntspill, so we're walking well before 8:30. A misty morning, and a bit damp under foot with the river quite high. But after an hour or so, and having wended our way through the lanes of Highbridge, high tide has gone and, once we've passed what is advertised as being Britain's shortest pier at Burnham on Sea, we can walk along the beach. Indeed, in ever brighter conditions as the sun burns off the mist, we walk a long way along the beach - about 5 miles from Burnham, through Berrow, and along to Brean. Just before noon, we reach the end of the sand at the foot of the cliffs of Brean Down and, at the National Trust cafe, we stop for pasties (very good ones) which are accompanied by.....mugs of tea! Truly, a couple of days replete with extraordinary events. A gentle climb up the cliffs and an equally gentle walk around Brean Down passing Brean Fort at the far end. How we now get to Weston-super-Mare depends on where we can cross the River Exe. Brean Sluice, a couple of miles upstream has been identified as a possibility but, as we get into the second mile, the riverside field path becomes rougher indicating less than regular use. So it's no real surprise that, when we reach a field gate alongside the sluice and a caravan park, we're informed by a farmer that we've been walking over his land, and that the gates on either side of the sluice are locked. However, the farmer is sanguine about the situation ("It happens") and, at that moment, an Environment Agency van appears. We ask the driver whether he can open the gates for us to walk across the sluice. His initial reaction is no - so it looks as though we'll have to take a far longer inland route to Weston via the main road. But just as we're heading for the caravan park, the van driver calls us back and unlocks the gates so that we can walk over the sluice. All in all, a few minutes of chat and reaction which have been somewhat different to those with the vet yesterday! The walk back downstream towards Weston is unremarkable until, just before Uphill Church, John pulls up lame with a shooting pain in an ankle. Gradually, when some pain killers have got to work and we've rounded the marina, things seem to improve, and we stroll for a mile or so along Weston beach, finishing before 4:00 at the Seaquarium. Like yesterday, we've walked almost 20 miles which, since our days on the Thames Path, is the most we've done on a second day. There's still plenty of time to walk to the station and have cans of cider in the station bar before John catches a rattler for a change of trains at Temple Meads, and Ben and Gary get a direct train back to Paddington.