Day 111 – Mappleton to Withernsea

Our cab driver yesterday picked us up earlier than her estimated arrival time and so, thinking that this may not be uncharacteristic, we finish a good breakfast, check out and are standing outside the Victoria & Albert shortly after 8 o’clock with our host pondering whether he should get on his motor bike and go for a game of golf in Filey. Lo and behold, the cab arrives at 8:10 and we’re back at the tea rooms and under way at 8:25. High tide is at 8:30, so there’s no chance of continuing along the beach and there’s no immediate route alongside the coast because of the small matter of an army firing range just south of Mappleton. So we have no alternative but to set off along the B1242 which is quite busy and, with a marked absence of pavements, not particularly enjoyable. However, after an hour, we identify a route off the road through East Hill Farm which should get us a bit closer to the coast. In a few places around the farm, the track isn’t entirely clear and we need to double back a couple of times before reaching a lane where a woman walking a dog informs us that, in a few hundred yards, there’s a path leading down to the beach from a car park at a place called Newton. By now it’s less than 2 hours after high tide, but the beach is the most direct route to Withernsea and our maps don’t show any other ways of accessing it for several miles. We somehow manage to overshoot the path, but the view from a field just beyond it confirms that the tide is going out, and our final double back to the car park eventually brings us down to the shoreline. However, whilst we are able to set off along the rather shingly beach, the view isn’t entirely promising. We can see a headland just under a mile away from which the tide hasn’t yet retreated. It looks as though a bit of paddling will be required – or perhaps some patience to wait until the tide has gone out further. But when we get there, a third strategy is possible, namely to scramble (not without some difficulty) over some extremely muddy rocks around the headland. The same course of action is needed at another headland shortly afterwards, but we then have a clear run of 5 or 6 miles to Withernsea during the course of which, at around 12:45, we cross the meridian into the eastern hemisphere. We’ve booked a cab to collect us from the Captain Williams pub which is on the north side of Withernsea and we’re sitting on benches outside the pub just before 1:30. However, there’s still an hour and a half until the cab is due to arrive, so we struggle to our feet and continue for another 20 minutes or so to the lifeboat station on the south side. This takes us through the 15 mile mark for the day and we start walking back towards the town centre in the hope of finding an alternative hostelry for refreshment and to which we can re-direct the cab. But there’s nowhere that looks particularly welcoming and eventually we end up back at the Captain Williams. On our arrival, some customers who were sitting outside the pub earlier greet Gary and say what sounds like “Your steak’s inside”. This would have been exceptionally welcoming, but it’s not a steak – it’s a stick. When we’d been on the benches, Gary had been as inattentive with Twiggy as he’d been with Sticky in Scarborough. His attempts to persuade the others that he had in fact realised this and that it was the real reason why he was happy to eschew other pubs on the way back from the lifeboat station lack any semblance of credibility. In any event, there is still time for some beers/ciders and a bit of freshening up before our cab arrives and gets us (and Twiggy) to Hull station by 3:45 to catch our trains home.

Day 110 – Bridlington to Mappleton

Mike arrives at Bridlington from York around 10:45 expecting an hour’s wait for John, Ben and Gary on their connecting train from Sheffield and Doncaster. The expectation is only two-thirds realised because John misses the connection at Sheffield in circumstances which are sufficiently controversial to result in him watching CCTV footage of the train’s departure with station staff – without any apparent resolution of why it left without him. However, with his arrival in Bridlington delayed by another hour, he suggests that the rest of us should start walking without him with a view to meeting up somewhere on the route to Hornsea/Mappleton later in the day. Mike, Ben and Gary accordingly set off at noon from outside Rags, and two suspicions are quickly confirmed. Firstly, there will be no problematic cliffs for Ben – indeed, with the tide out, there’s a lot of beach action in prospect. And secondly, John’s suggestion that we don’t wait for him will serve to get his competitive juices flowing in terms of hot pursuit: when he is informed that we have walked 3.34 miles during the first hour his reaction is along the lines of “How am I supposed to catch up with you if you walk that quickly?”. Anyway, it’s difficult to give much detail of the first 12 miles because there are a limited number of ways to describe sun, blue sky, and beautiful (and often deserted) sand. Suffice to say that we’re able to stay on the beach past Wilsthorpe, Barmston and Skipsea all the way to Hornsea where we arrive at 3:50 and decide to wait for John, with some liquid refreshment, on the veranda of the Marine pub. Our wait is a mere 15 minutes. John has accomplished the 12 miles in just over 3 hours, to include apparently some de-shodding and re-shodding for an unanticipated paddle. It’s hard to say whether this is more or less remarkable than the fact that, according to his logger, the walk along a flat beach has involved ascents of 705 feet. We’re staying in Hornsea tonight but, in order to reduce any time pressure of getting to Withernsea tomorrow, we’re walking another 3 miles or so this afternoon to Mappleton. Again, we’re able to do this along the beach before taking a short track and lane leading to the Mappleton Tea Rooms which we reach (closed) just after 5:20. We manage to contact a cab company in Hornsea, and a car arrives to pick us up from outside the tea rooms about 15 minutes later and takes us back to Hornsea and the Victoria & Albert B&B. We arrange to be collected at 8:15 the following morning, check in (and settle in) at the B&B, and return to the Marine – which is just across the road – for supper. A rather unclear meal offer proves to be, in essence, two for the price of one which results in the food element of the bill being about half of the drinks element. Sadly, the fish and chips prove to be nowhere near as good as those which we’ve had on our last three trips in Redcar, Robin Hood’s Bay and Bridlington. However, there are two similarities with our evening in Bridlington namely that the wine consumption includes no Shiraz and that there’s some football on TV involving Belgium – this time against Japan in the World Cup, with Belgium winning 3-2 (having been 0-2 down with 25 minutes to go) in the round of the last 16

Day 109 – Speeton to Bridlington

The South Dene provides a good cooked breakfast at 7:30, our cab arrives on time, and the journey back to the Honey Pot includes the shock horror revelation, via the car intercom, that Ernie is in fact around today. We’re slightly delayed in the pub car park by Gary having to make a call regarding some “suspicious activity” on his credit card, but we’re under way at 8:50. The distance to Bridlington by road is only 6 miles but, by the more circuitous coastal path, it’s about 10 miles further. As anticipated yesterday, Ben has decided to take an inland route at least as far as Flamborough Head and, when we split up at Speeton, we arrange to meet at the Flamborough lighthouse. After going alongside some fields, the climb for John, Mike and Gary to the top of Buckton Cliffs is certainly one which Ben would have found tricky at best, although the initial walk along the cliff top itself (known as the Headland Way), whilst distinctly breezy, isn’t too bad. The entire walk today proves to be above some pretty spectacular cliffs and rock formations – to include the section beyond Buckton, namely Bempton Cliffs which is an RSPB reserve and, accordingly, something of a draw for the local twitchers to observe the huge amount of bird life on and around the cliff faces. It is here that John takes coastal purity to a new level by walking out to and around each of the four or five betwitchered observation platforms along the path at Bempton. After leaving the reserve, our lighthouse rendezvous soon comes into view, but the walk around the coast – including the edge of the Flamborough Cliffs golf course – takes almost an hour, so we don’t reach the lighthouse until just after 12, but only 5 minutes later than Ben. We all walk out to Flamborough Head itself and turn south east for the last couple of hours to Bridlington. But although the cliffs aren’t as high as they were earlier today, the path is still close to the edge and, after another 10 minutes or so, Ben returns to the lighthouse to continue along some minor roads. For the rest of us, the immediate impression of the walk in front of us is of a cliff top descending gently towards our destination. However, this impression proves to be deceptive because there are several hidden inlets with descents and ascents needed to cross them at South Landing, Hartendale Gutter and Danes Dyke. But once we’re alongside Bridlington Links golf course, the gentle descent becomes an actuality as we pass Sewerby Hall and Gardens and eventually reach the Bridlington sea front. We finish at the harbour which is conveniently close to Rags but we decide that, for our pre-departure refreshment, it might be more prudent to find a pub closer to the station which is half a mile away. An enquiry of a postman elicits the local knowledge of, and directions to, the Fat Badger. Duly ensconced there, we contact Ben who is just arriving at the harbour and joins us at the pub as we’re ordering our second beer. The station (very traditional – like a small Marylebone) is only 5 minutes away. Ben and Gary, and John, catch a train via Hull to catch connections at Doncaster and Sheffield, while Mike returns to York via Seamer. We reckon that the rest of Yorkshire, together with Lincolnshire and East Anglia, will be a cliff free zone, so hopefully we’ll be able to stay together on future walks at least as far as Kent – and subject, of course, to the not too distant problem of the Humber Bridge…..