Day 112 – Withernsea to Kilnsea (via Spurn Head)

Some works which are being carried out by Network Rail near Derby have put the mockers on John’s customary outbound travel timetable. He therefore stays in London on the eve of the walk and then catches an early morning train with Ben and Gary from King’s Cross to Hull. This arrives shortly after 10 o’clock – only a few minutes later than Mike’s train from York – and our cab driver from the previous trip has us back in Withernsea just before 11. Consistent with comments on many earlier walks, it is necessary to bang on about our good fortune as regards weather and tides. After two or three weeks of pretty foul weather, to include Storm Ali 7 days ago, we today have late September sun and clear skies overhead. And with our arrival being 3 hours after high tide, we have the availability of a beach underfoot and the prospect of being able, later in the day, to walk out to and back from Spurn Point without getting our feet wet. So our first 9 miles are spent on firm East Yorkshire sand, with little to break the view of sea and sky apart from an off-shore wind farm and, on the low cliffs above us at Easington, a well patrolled gas terminal. We come slightly inland to reach a path which marks the entrance to the Spurn Nature Reserve, but are soon back on a narrow stretch of sand which lies between the entrance and Spurn Head itself and which, at the next high tide in about 5 hours, will probably be at least part submerged. At the other side of the sand, a 2 mile long pathway leads to the lighthouse although, for the last few hundred yards, John follows an alternative route along a parallel raised embankment. We stop briefly at the lighthouse to buy much needed cold drinks and then continue past the lifeboat station and through bushes to reach the Point itself where the Humber meets the North Sea. An amazing spot. From here, it’s a short drop down to the beach and we decide to follow this route, on the North Sea side, for some of the journey back to the Spurn entrance. However, Ben’s progress is being slowed by a sore achilles, so Mike scrambles up a short but steep sand bank to see whether it affords access to the embankment which John used earlier. It does, but Ben thinks that it would be easier for him to keep walking along the beach than to try and climb the bank. Mike stays on the embankment and the four of us are re-united by the sand at the inland end of the 2 mile pathway. From here we return to the Spurn entrance and then spend around 30 minutes walking on minor roads to reach our overnight stop alongside the Humber estuary, the Crown & Anchor pub at Kilnsea. We arrive at 5:15 having completed 17.5 miles in just over 6 hours since leaving Withernsea. The next 45 minutes are spent in the bar during which time (1) we have a couple of pints; (2) we determine through a lengthy heads and tails process who will room with whom (for the first time in several years we are not in single rooms tonight); (3) we order our supper so that we can eat at 7 o’clock, before a “large group” arrives at 7:30; and (4) following negotiations between John and an ostensibly intransigent landlady who has said that breakfast isn’t served until 9 a.m., we also order breakfast so that it will be on the table at 8:45. Almost as exhausted by the admin as by the walk, we freshen up (the sharing arrangements are John & Mike and Ben & Gary) and return to the bar in time for 7 o’clock supper service or, in John and Mike’s case, in time for another pint before supper. The food is good (fish cakes and chips for Gary; fish, chips and mushy peas for the rest) and is accompanied by a bottle of white and the long awaited return of a bottle of Shiraz. There’s no evidence of it also being accompanied by a particularly large group of other diners. The main course is finished soon after 8 and, given our uncharacteristically late breakfast time, we don’t see any need to retire too early, so we while away another hour or so with three of us (Ben being the exception) having an equally uncharacteristic dessert and all of us having a less uncharacteristic sticky. Whilst ordering the stickies, John has a chat with a bloke at the bar who reckons that we should be able to follow a path alongside the Humber for most of our planned walk tomorrow, although some bramble patches near the end may necessitate an inland diversion. Duly encouraged, and having polished off the stickies, we climb the wooden hill to our rooms.