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.