Day 169 – Littlehampton to Church Norton: 16.8m: 6.1h

As was the case on our last trip, the Arun View does not provide an early breakfast and so, having already paid our bills, we leave at 7:15 with the aim of finding sustenance en route – hopefully within the first couple of hours. Immediately outside the pub, we cross the Harbour Bridge, a retractable steel pedestrian footbridge linking east and west Littlehampton. Going along the west bank of the river, we pass Littlehampton Golf Club which is remarkably busy for so early in the morning. We get back to the coast where a rather bouncy boardwalk is available before we’re able to cross a narrow stretch of shingle to reach sand on the sea shore which affords comfortable underfoot conditions for the next 30 minutes or so. We then have to cross back over the shingle near Atherington to a coast track which, after a short while, has a signpost indicating, encouragingly, a café. However, such café as might have existed cannot now be found. We carry on to Elmer and then to Middleton-on-Sea where we’ve been informed by a couple of passers-by that there might be somewhere open for breakfast. It transpires that to investigate this will require a diversion inland of around half a mile – and so, although it is now after 9 o’clock, we continue westwards. Our patience is rewarded when, at 9:30, we get to Felpham and see the Boat House Café with an inviting menu on the door. Initially it seems that even this might be a disappointment because we’re told by the women behind the counter that the chef hasn’t arrived yet. However, when we say that we just need bacon, eggs and toast (plus teas and coffees) they reckon that they’ll be able to rustle this up. And rustle it up they do. Indeed, they seem inordinately pleased with the charming Mr Harkness’s parting comment “Who needs a chef”? Shortly after leaving the Boat House, we reach Bognor Regis. Here, Helen leaves us to catch a train back to Barnham where she will pick up the car and drive to collect us from today’s finishing point at the north east corner of Selsey Bill. Our route there is relatively straightforward, but involves going around Pagham Harbour. This isn’t a boating harbour, but a large sheltered inlet serving as a nature reserve and wetland site for wildlife. There is a walking trail around the area but, before embarking on this, a small disagreement arises as to whether we need to include in the walk a narrow spit of land which stretches about half a mile into the harbour. Is it, as the maps apparently suggest, a spit which can be walked around and therefore to be treated as a mini Spurn Point, or simply, as one person’s eyes suggest, a single out and back path and therefore to be treated like a jetty or pier, in the same way as Horrid Hill in the Medway last year? The majority view is the former. In accordance with our country’s great democratic tradition, the decision to include the spit is greeted by the minority with all the grace which he believes it merits, and the subsequent discovery that the spit is in fact an out and back path is greeted by the majority with all the regret which they believe it merits! The walking trail takes just over an hour to complete. For the most part, this is along well maintained tracks but, towards the end, we have to cross a couple of very wet and muddy fields. The effect on our boots is such that we probably wouldn’t have been welcome at the very smart Crab and Lobster pub/restaurant near Sidlesham Quay had we been minded to call in for refreshment. But we have no thought of so doing because we are still nearly half an hour away from the church at Church Norton where Helen is meeting us and she is already in a car park just outside the village. We arrive at the church just after 2 o’clock a couple of minutes before Helen and, following a change of footwear, drive to Chichester where John and Helen drop Mike, Ben and Gary at the station and then continue their return journey to Gloucestershire. The Foundry pub is conveniently located for the rail travellers to while away their time before catching trains home although, as we approach the bar, Mike is asked to remove his cap. For the first time any of us can remember, we are in a pub which doesn’t like its customers to wear headgear! Still, the beer’s ok, our trains are on time, and we have less than 140 miles to go until we’re back at Poole Harbour. So maybe just the 9 days left….??