Day 72 - Carnforth to Kents Bank

Perfectly acceptable brekker, and we're able to supplement our chocolate supply for the day at the bar. Only minor irritation is that there is nowhere in Carnforth selling postcards which is open before our departure at 8:30. We're due to be meeting Cedric Robinson (the 80+ Queen's Guide for Morecambe Sands) at 11:30 so that he can take us from Arnside across the Bay to Kents Bank. Three hours to get to Arnside should be sufficient, so we're not overly concerned by an early navigational glitch which results in us having to leave a field by climbing over a barbed wire fence. Welcome to the walk Helen! When we get back to the coast, our suspicion that a building in the distance is Heysham Power Station is confirmed by a woman who is walking a very excitable dog and who says that her husband works there. The suggestion that she should ask him to arrange some helpful signage along the perimeter walkway may not have been fully taken on board. As we round a small headland, we encounter a film crew (well, four people with a couple of cameras) who ask whether we'd care to be included in something they are shooting about the area. Given our Cedric schedule, they have to be satisfied with a still photograph which will doubtless raise the standard of their piece (whatever it is). After a bit of scramblage over some rocks near Silverdale, we realise that we might not get to the beach at Arnside before 11:30, so John yomps on ahead through a narrow wooded path just in case Cedric is already there. He isn't, but phone calls to Mrs Robinson (Cedric doesn't go in for such fripperies as mobiles) confirm that he should be on his way "in the tractor". There are no immediate signs of his arrival, but we then see something across the sands in the distance which might be moving towards us and, after a while, it becomes clear that it is the tractor carrying Cedric, along with Barry (his youth policy - i.e. around our age) and John (the driver). After donning daps/plimsolls we eventually set off to walk with Cedric and Barry just after midday with John the driver keeping the tractor reasonably close by - and carrying some of our rucksacks. The route is not as most crows would fly, and comprises three distinct parts namely water (which, in one section, is up to our knees), a very uneven area of pitted sand and water (which Barry calls the Somme), and finally a marsh which necessitates getting round or jumping over several ditches. After the watery part, Cedric decides to complete the crossing in the tractor - now unencumbered with rucksacks - leaving us in the care of Barry. However, he is sufficiently keen to ensure that the young 'un will follow the prescribed route (i.e. Cedric's) and not take a short cut to the marsh that he keeps the tractor close at hand until, according to Barry, we've passed the point where a short cut would be possible. (The tractor then miraculously picks up speed and disappears around the headland.) In one sense, this is probably just as well. It's become apparent that we won't be able to get to Cark - our intended destination today - and short cuts would have resulted in us arriving at Kents Bank too early for a train (and Barry says that there are no pubs in the vicinity) and too late to make any meaningful progress towards Cark. As it is, we get to Kents Bank in time to meet up again with Cedric - and have a farewell chat about estuary/bay crossings further up the coast - and, counter-intuitively, to change back into walking boots as the first occupants of a newly finished (i.e. a few minutes before our arrival) waiting shelter on the station platform. The remaining miles to Cark will have to be ticked off as an evening precursor to the next couple of days walking. In the meantime, our train from Cark gets to Lancaster in time for Ben and Gary to catch the Euston train, and to Preston in time for John and Helen to catch the Birmingham train. An imaginative attempt by Ben to secure a postcard through purchase and transfer by John at Preston station is a (or an) heroic failure.