Day 117 – Cleethorpes to Saltfleet:

The Kingsway’s cooked breakfast isn’t great, but it’s filling and is served from 7 a.m. so we’re finished, checked out and on our way by 8 o’clock. As we continue along the seafront and a section of beach, we cross back into the eastern hemisphere with the meridian being marked by a very smart looking blue globe. The question is raised as to whether we’ll return to the west before we reach the Sussex coast. The answer would seem to depend on how far inland we have to travel to get round/over the River Welland before starting out along the North Norfolk coast. In the more immediate term, we realise that we’ve walked for 4 days (and nearly 70 miles) since leaving the Crown & Anchor pub at Kilnsea, and we can still see the Spurn Head lighthouse only a few miles away across the estuary. After leaving Cleethorpes and passing the Humber Mouth Yacht Club, the next few miles are along paths and raised embankments which pass around and through the salt marshes which stretch back from the sea shore. Fortunately, two potential delays along this part of the route don’t materialise. First, the online blog/diary created by Charles (the guy we met in Hull at the end of next year) mentions some embankment works just after the yacht club which necessitated for him a diversion around a golf course. Those works have clearly been completed during the last few months because the embankment is now clear. And secondly, we find that the sluice gates at Tetney Lock have access to walkers, so we can cross over the narrow canal and don’t need to spend an extra 40 minutes on an inland diversion. Once past the marshes, our path is closer to the shoreline. Charles apparently faced another difficulty in this area near North Coates where a section of path had been closed/fenced off by more construction works. It may be that the fencing has been made less restrictive since Charles was here because we have no difficulty in using the nearby beach as a route around the works which, according to notices, relate to a project called Hornsea 1. The nature of the project is not immediately apparent but, as with yesterday’s mystery of the Cleethorpes bagpipes, we learn more about it later today. For now, we need to get through an area called Donna Nook. This is another area of salt marsh (and a nature reserve) but, immediately offshore, it’s used by local RAF stations for bombing practice. Not surprisingly, therefore, there are a number of restrictions to observe and, on a couple of occasions, we check with rangers that we’re going the right way. This turns out to be somewhat over-cautious because the route is pretty straightforward along the edge of the beach, and sand paths through dunes which are helpfully marked with the tyre tracks of tractors and other vehicles. Indeed, as we’re leaving the area, a car and land rover come towards us along a sand path leading to the RAF base which we’ve just passed. Somewhat surprisingly, the land rover stops and a smiling uniformed soldier wearing a light blue beret (which we later ascertain is that of the Army Air Corps) jumps out of the back seat, shakes Gary’s hand, and asks what we’re up to. We tell him how, and for how long, we’ve been doing the walk – which he describes as “hardcore” (not sure how he’d have reacted to Charles’s efforts). He doesn’t say why he’s visiting the RAF base and, still smiling, gets back into the land rover. He probably doesn’t hear the comment which one of us makes to Mike (who hadn’t spoken during the conversation) “Well done Vladimir”. We’re now left with about a couple of miles to Saltfleet, most of which comprises a straight walk along another grass embankment. We reach a road, wiggle through a caravan park and, shortly after 1:30, arrive at the Crown Inn where we’ve arranged for Colin to meet us at 2:15. However, as John feared might be the case, the Crown is closed, as is the nearby New Inn. Both have an opening time of 4 pm. John therefore rings the cab firm to ask for a pick up as quickly as possible, and we sit outside the New Inn to wait. Fortunately, Colin has already arrived in Saltfleet (he’s been parked behind the Crown) so the wait is one of only a few minutes, and we get to Cleethorpes station around 2:15. We say to Colin that we’ll be in touch to arrange a return journey to Saltfleet when we resume our walk in four weeks and he says that, shortly after that trip, he’ll be doing the GB Three Peaks Challenge and that, because he’s a member of (or somehow affiliated with) a Scottish pipe band or organisation, he’ll be doing the climbs in full piping regalia. John’s razor sharp mind immediately spots a connection and he mentions the bagpipes which we heard when walking along the beach yesterday evening. Colin says that it was probably him practising. So there we are. We’re at the station rather early, and the 1424 will be leaving soon. John – who has a flexible rail ticket – spends an unnecessary amount of time debating whether he should catch that train, or have a cider and, as was always the plan, catch the 1524 with the rest of us. Big surprise, cider wins. There are two bars at Cleethorpes station (rather prosaically called Number 1 and Number 2) which could appear excessive given that there are only two departures and arrivals per hour namely a trans-Pennine express to/from Manchester and a local rattler to/from Barton-on-Humber (possibly stopping at New Clee). But having chosen Number 2 as our nestler for the next 45 minutes, it’s apparent that the clientele is not so much weary rail travellers, but rather Cleethorpes residents who use it as a local – and some of whom are getting increasingly “weary”. We have plenty of time for a couple of sharpeners, and a few bags of crisps, before catching the 1524 which leaves on time. At Grimsby a bloke boards the train and sits opposite Ben. After a short while, he strikes up a conversation from which it emerges that he’s working as a support manager for a huge wind farm which is being constructed in the North Sea about half way between England and the Netherlands. It transpires that the construction project is called Hornsea 1 and he reckons that the site which we saw earlier today would have been involved with cable laying for the project. So there we are on that one as well. He leaves the train at Doncaster, as do Ben, Mike and Gary to catch their connecting trains home. John remains aboard and, having spent much of the Cleethorpes to Doncaster leg asleep, manages to be awake at Sheffield to catch his connection to Cheltenham.