A good
night’s sleep for all, despite John’s observation that there were seven
pillows/cushions too many on the bed. Breakfast is available at 7 o’clock and,
on our way from Hessle yesterday evening, we ordered another Foxy Cab for 8 o’clock
today. It arrives 5 minutes ahead of schedule – and 4 minutes before Ben – so
we’re back to the Hessle slip road and the bottom of the steps at 8:15. We’re
able to continue a short distance along the grassy track before having to walk
through a small business park and then on a narrow road alongside the estuary.
This leads to a viewing point close to the Humber Bridge, and an alley between
houses brings us to a pedestrian bridge over the A63 and some roads/pathways
which take us to the northern approach to the Humber Bridge. Ben has already
decided to catch a bus to make the crossing, and Mike says that he will join
him in order to rest a slightly dodgy knee. They walk off in what they take to
be the general direction of bus stops, while John and Gary climb some steps
onto the bridge. Signs on the approach have warned “Danger High Winds” and,
whilst it’s certainly a bit breezy, it’s nothing to cause concern. Indeed, a
cyclist passes us shortly after we set off. The wind is coming from the west,
so the decision is made to walk along the east side in order to obtain maximum
cover. It has to be said that both of us are quite keen to stick to the inside
of the footpath, but the only places we can feel any real effect of the wind are
around the towers of the bridge. It takes nearly 25 minutes to cross and is a
great experience. Two buses pass by on the way over, and it is assumed that Ben
and Mike will be on one of them. A phone call shortly after John and Gary leave
the bridge confirms this, and the four of us are reunited around 9:45 by a
Tesco store near Barton-on-Humber railway station. From here it takes 15
minutes to get to the embankment path on the south side of the river which, for
the most part, we’re able to follow for the next 10 miles. The only instances
where we have to divert inland are to get round/over a couple of inlets and to
get through New Holland Dock. Shortly after New Holland, the river begins a
sweeping right hand bend which leads Ben to discover and point out the
interesting fact that we are currently further north than our starting point
yesterday. All in all a pretty comfortable walk, made easier by the fact that
the wind – which seems to be stronger in Lincolnshire than in Yorkshire – is
behind us. We reach our destination, Killingholme Port, via a path which passes
a vast lorry/container park. It’s 1:50 and we’ve done 16.7 miles today, but
we’re still faced with a further walk to get to the Black Bull Inn at East
Halton where we’ve arranged for a cab to collect us at 3:15. According to the
logger, this is a distance of one and a half miles, but the route on the ground
is slightly longer – a tad over two miles. After surviving the traffic on the
road leading to the port and crossing several fields, we reach the pub at 2:35.
Pre-ordered sandwiches (with crisps and cake) are waiting for us, along with a
landlord who is keen to supply us with information about the pub, in case we
want to return. On a second circuit of the country perhaps? A couple of ciders/lagers
accompany the food and, although our cab arrives 10 minutes early, we ease our
way through the drinks and leave at the appointed time. Like the landlord, our
driver likes a bit of a chat – in his case about the tensions felt by North
Lincolnshire folk at being reorganised with (he can hardly bring himself to say
it) East Yorkshire into the “county” of Humberside in the mid-1970’s, and also
the wartime history of Killingholme. Indeed, whilst explaining the reasons why
a railway station was built at Habrough rather than in Killingholme, he stops
to drop us at Habrough station rather than at our intended destination,
Barnetby. Fortunately, this doesn’t delay us unduly and we get to Barnetby a
good 10 minutes before our train to Doncaster and Sheffield leaves. It
transpires that we’ve only exceeded on three occasions the 36.7 miles which
we’ve completed over the last couple of days. A good way to end our walks of
2018.
Day 114 – Sunk Island to Hessle
Weather
set fair again – on this occasion we’ve just missed Storm Callum. Cancellation
of the early morning train to Hull from King’s Cross, and John again just
missing his connection at Sheffield, only delays our rendezvous with Mike at
Hull by 20 minutes, and Messrs Foxy Cabs get us back to the hay bales opposite
Sands Farm in time for an 11:50 start. Because of the works being carried out
to the embankment along the shoreline, the first two hours are spent walking
some six and a half miles along very pleasant country lanes through
Thorngumbald and towards Paull. After leaving Paull (three pubs on a very short
high street) we join the estuary embankment for almost a mile, but further
shoreline progress is prevented by the Salt End chemicals plant where the path
turns inland to a lane which leads to a roundabout and the A63 dual carriageway
into Hull. Three more roundabouts and 45 not particularly picturesque minutes
later, we’re able to turn back towards the Hull Ferry Port but, having reached
the Humber, we find that there’s no route available there. We’ve missed a
rather poorly signposted path for the Trans Pennine Way which, when we find it,
takes us alongside a site occupied by Siemens Gamesa, a renewable energy
company manufacturing rotor blades for wind turbines. The nature of their
business is apparent from hundreds of these huge pieces of equipment (each at
least 50 yards long) on individual ground cradles, presumably awaiting onshore
and offshore delivery and installation. It’s clearly a massive operation and it
takes us a good 30 minutes to walk past it and along another short path to
regain the side of the Humber at an aquarium called The Deep. It’s almost 5
o’clock and we’ve walked nearly 16 miles in 5 hours. We reckon we’ve done
pretty well…until we bump into Charles. He’s a young man carrying a rucksack
with a notice in a pocket on the back proclaiming that he’s walking 6,100 miles
around the entire GB coast raising funds for the Mental Health Foundation. We
walk with him towards Hull discovering that he started his walk from Tower
Bridge at the beginning of the year and, remarkably, hopes to complete it at
the end of November. He’s achieving this by walking for periods of 6 days and
resting on the seventh (think somebody’s done that before). So far, he’s
averaged about 22 miles a day, but this has included, by way of example,
sections on the South West Coast path when he had snow drifts to contend with. Today
he started at Kilnsea and will have covered about 30 miles. On a quick
calculation, we reckon he’ll need to average 27 miles a day from now to get
back to Tower Bridge in just under 6 weeks’ time. It’s an extraordinary
performance which renders our efforts distinctly amateurish. (A later
inspection of his daily diary and website – www.charleswalk.com – complete with maps and photographs and
prepared in what must be very limited free time, also knocks this blog offering
into an extremely large cocked hat.) The day’s walk for Charles ends as we
approach the Marina. We wish him well, and continue towards and around the
Albert Dock, which involves crossing lock gates and then climbing up steps to a
narrow pathway which effectively runs through the roofs of dockside buildings.
After the dock, we pass the St Andrews’ Quay Retail Park. There is a temptation
to stop at a bar there and phone for a taxi to take us back to our hotel in
Hull, but we’d like to get a bit closer to the Humber Bridge so as to make
things more manageable tomorrow. After a mile or so along a grassy track, and
with dusk falling, we climb some steps at 6:15 to reach the top of a slip road
off the A63 near Hessle. John phones Foxy Cabs and, despite the pick-up point
being lost in translation (we wait in an Aldi carpark and the cab initially
goes to a neighbouring carpark outside an Audi garage) we’re collected within
10 minutes and reach the Kingston Theatre Hotel by 6:45. Beers/ciders in the
bar precede us being directed to our upgraded rooms in a neighbouring building
of “suites”. It’s unlikely that we’ll be able fully to appreciate this
unaccustomed luxury. For only the fourth time since starting out on the South
West Coast Path we’ve covered 20 miles in a day and are feeling a tad weary. We
reassemble in the dining room shortly after 8 o’clock for just a main course
and a couple of bottles of wine. Ben and Gary retire at 9:30, leaving John and
Mike to finish the evening with one sticky each.
Day 113 – Kilnsea to Sunk Island
Sharing
rooms doesn’t appear to have unduly affected sleep patterns (at least not that
anyone’s admitting) and we’re at our breakfast table by 8:30 in the hope that
food may appear earlier than the appointed time. Our hopes are realised. A
cooked breakfast without beans (good) but also without sausage (not so good) is
served promptly, and we’re ready to get under way at 9:05 with Ben’s achilles
having benefited (he hopes) from a combination of overnight pill taking and
cream application. Our destination today is a caravan park about 14 miles away
on a road just beyond Sunk Island. This is one of the few spots in the area
which is easily identifiable for our cab pick up which we arranged yesterday
for 3 p.m. subject to the caveat that if we make sufficiently good progress
we’ll phone the driver and meet him at a telephone box a couple of miles
further up the road. For now, with high tide on the Humber, we set off along
the road outside the Crown & Anchor and, after a few hundred yards, turn
left over a field to reach a raised embankment which runs parallel to the
estuary and which marks the start of an area called Kilnsea Wetlands. The route
ahead looks promising and a twitcher arriving at the other end of the wetlands
confirms that it should take us all the way to Sunk Island. However, when we
enter another area called Weeton Saltmarsh, we can see a number of water filled
ditches with no immediately apparent crossing points to keep us on course. A
couple of men working on the embankment reckon that we should be able to cross
what looks to be the most problematic ditch at a pumping station but, beyond
that, there are apparently gaps in the estuary path so we’ll need to go inland
to get round them. But crossing at the pumping station presents the first
difficulty because, whilst the high gate behind the station which leads onto
the crossing can be opened, the equally high gate at the other end is
padlocked. We can’t climb over it, but Mike notices that the vertical bars
don’t touch the ground, so we might be able to edge our way underneath them.
Mike’s first attempt, on his front, doesn’t work but John then tries by sliding
flat on his back and gets through. The same technique is successfully adopted
by the rest of us – helped by the fact that someone who has clearly done this
before has managed to bend one of the bars slightly upwards to create a bit
more room. Buoyed by this first time method of overcoming an obstacle on the
walk, our attentions turn to which inland route now to take. The closest route
is along another raised embankment back towards the Humber, but there’s no
guarantee that this will rejoin the estuary beyond all the gaps in the path
which we’ve been told about. The most reliable route is along a series of
roads, but these start further away from the pumping station and are far less
direct (and coastally pure) than the embankment route. We’ve so far walked 6
miles in around 2 hours, so we decide to go along the embankment on the basis
that, if there are any problems, they should emerge in time for us to walk back
and go along the roads. As it transpires, there are no problems. It takes
around half an hour to rejoin the estuary (crossing back to the west of the
meridian en route) and, from what we can then see, the way ahead looks
continuous and unimpeded. Despite this, during the next 90 minutes or so, we
note possible bale out points as we pass them, just in case we do need to
retrace our steps. This may have something to do with the name of our
destination, Sunk Island, not being wholly confidence inspiring. But the path
takes us all the way to the area containing, we anticipate, the bramble patches
which were mentioned to John last night. A track leads away from the estuary
which we decide it would be prudent to take. This brings us to Stone Creek Farm
on a road which meanders back towards the estuary and to the “caravan park”
which is, in fact, a house with space outside for several caravans. Just before
this, we bump into the bloke to whom John spoke in the Crown & Anchor bar.
He’s with a couple of others doing some bird watching and photography over
towards the estuary. We stop for a bit of a chat about, among other things, how
a closure of the path (mentioned on a Council notice by the side of the road)
will affect our next walk and, by the time we resume today’s, it’s about 2:30.
We’re not going to reach the telephone box in the next 30 minutes, but equally
there’s nothing to keep us at the so called caravan park. We therefore phone
the cab driver and arrange for him to pick us up wherever he sees us on the
road between the two points. This may give us the time to break through the 15
mile barrier for the day, but the driver gets to us at 2:45 when we’re opposite
Sands Farm and have completed a mere 14.6 miles. We don’t suggest that he
follows us for the next 700 yards but instead climb into the cab and we’re back
at Hull station around 3:20. Gary is spending a couple of days in Hull with
Sally and, conveniently, her train from London (delayed) pulls in a couple of
minutes after our arrival. Five of us therefore repair to the bar of the Royal
Hull Hotel on the station concourse where a wedding party is partaking of a few
drinks before being summoned to the wedding breakfast – a concept which, in the
middle of the afternoon, causes John a perhaps unwarranted degree of confusion.
As for our party, we have one round of drinks before Mike’s departure on his
train to York just after 4 o’clock, and another before the departure of Ben’s
and John’s train half an hour later.
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