Day 123 – Gedney Drove to King’s Lynn: 19.0m: 6.0h

We pack our rucksacks and bring them over to the pub with us for breakfast so as to ensure that we’re ready for the 7:30 pick up time. As with yesterday evening, Ace Cabs arrive slightly early, so we’re back at Gedney Drove at 7:40 and under way a couple of minutes later. This morning’s medical report again concerns Gary – surprise, surprise. Whilst relatively refreshed, he’s developed a cramping knee overnight and also, which could be connected, a slight lower back pain. He’s going to see how things go during the first five miles of today’s walk (which will bring us back to Sutton Bridge) and then decide whether to continue. Neither the medical issue, nor another very warm day, seems to affect our pace. During the first hour – which involves a short piece of road action before crossing a field to reach the west bank of the River Nene and the west lighthouse – we manage a very creditable 3.2 miles. We continue south alongside the river until we reach what our cab driver had earlier described as “the port” just outside Sutton Bridge. We’d assumed that this would prove to be something of a misnomer and/or reflect past glories of the town, but it looks as though it’s a relatively modern and extensive facility. There are no vessels in evidence, but there is a bit of activity onshore alongside what seem to be operational warehouses and gantry cranes. By now, Gary feels his pace to be dropping and the walk from Gedney hasn’t eased his knee or back. He decides it would be better to pull up at Sutton Bridge – which has a half hourly bus service to King’s Lynn – rather than to risk any problems during the following 14 miles from which there are no equally convenient bale outs. The bus stop for the King’s Lynn service isn’t immediately apparent but, following John and Mike’s departure, becomes so when a bus approaches and helpfully waits until Gary gets to it and climbs aboard.       

In the meantime, after leaving Gary searching for the bus stop, Mike and John set off for West Lynn, crossing the bridge over the Nene Outfall Cut and making their way northwards back along the east side of the Cut towards the sea. They look back over their shoulders at each bus engine-like sound hoping to catch sight of Gary’s bus crossing the bridge, but to no avail. They see the port from the opposite side of the water, but the brief flurry of activity when we passed through earlier has subsided. The question as to how ships could turn round in such a narrow stretch of water is answered as a turning point is spotted for ships to nose into and swing their sterns round. A piece of good fortune occurs when Mike spots a 50p piece on the road which he promptly trousers. An inconclusive discussion ensues as to the amount of money that would not be trousered, but taken to the police station. It is agreed that 50p would be snaffled, but that say £1,000 would be handed in. So quite a wide corridor of uncertainty. Unlike the 75p saving on the wine yesterday evening, Mike does not add the 50p to the team reconciliation. It takes an hour on the road to reach the east lighthouse which, perhaps not surprisingly, is opposite the west lighthouse passed two hours earlier. The lighthouses were built to enable ships to enter the Cut at high tide in the dark. Otherwise they might have inadvertently parked in a field. Apparently, the east lighthouse is where Peter Scott started his career as a naturalist. On turning eastward, there ensues a 9 mile walk along yet another grass embankment. Progress is fast but somewhat tiring as the grass, although cut, is not very short and the cuttings are more like hay. The team’s perception of distance is shown to be seriously over optimistic. A headland point is variously estimated to be half a mile or three-quarters of a mile away. In fact it proves to be one and a half miles distant. Excitement is provided by the logger at one stage indicating that we have climbed 8,000 feet, which even John concedes is likely to be wrong. It subsequently revises this to 124 feet, which Mike still thinks is an exaggeration. Eventually the embankment starts to swing southwards. The walking becomes much easier after passing through a gate as there are now cattle and sheep which have done a much better job of controlling the grass than the mowers. The lambs seem unconcerned by the heat in spite of their woolly overcoats. They look ready for the pot. We reach the Lynn Channel which is the route to King’s Lynn, being the Great Ouse Outfall. Then the port of King’s Lynn appears. There are no ships apparent, but the quayside is busy with varied sounds of cranes and machinery evident. The pace has been blistering with one hour recorded at 3.4 mph, and we reach the Lynn Ferry at 1:45 having walked 18.6 miles in 6 hours including the time spent trying to locate Gary’s bus stop. We find that we are in time for the late running 1:40 ferry, and cross the river. It is very low tide, so the ferry is guided and assisted to the jetty by a ferry man standing in the river in his waders. He is using what appears from a distance to be a specialist piece of equipment to judge the depth, but which turns out to be an old broom. We walk up the jetty into the town to a delightful square. John recognises the Duke’s Head where he used to stay 40 years ago when working in King’s Lynn and where the first signs of appendicitis occurred. The offending article was removed later the same day in the local hospital. The area becomes less prosperous as we walk to the train station for a lager/cider in the buffet before boarding the train home an hour ahead of schedule.

Day 122 – Marsh Farm to Gedney Drove: 19.1m: 6.4h

Ben fails to come under starter’s orders due to a sprung fetlock (i.e. a sprained ankle) which he believes to have been sustained on a treadmill in that most unhealthy of places, the gym. A day watching England win the cricket World Cup 24 hours ago has not provided a cure. The other three of us meet at Peterborough station where a bit of re-arranging of this evening’s plans is required, not only because of Ben’s absence but also because our accommodation at The Boathouse B&B is no longer available due to some workmen needing to stay there for a bit longer than originally envisaged. The proprietor has arranged for us to stay instead at The Anchor pub (also in Sutton Bridge) which sounds perfectly acceptable. It’ll be for the same price and there’ll be no charge for Ben’s no show. And we can have supper there so our booking at the Riverside restaurant is cancelled. Finally, our taxi driver this evening and tomorrow morning declares himself unavailable so we’ve been placed in the no doubt reliable hands of Messrs Ace Cabs. A day’s worth of admin in quarter of an hour.

It’s only a 20 minute rail journey to Spalding where we’re met by a pre-booked Colin who gets us to Marsh Farm just after 11:30 with John showing not a little surprise at the efficiency of the directions which he evidently gave when booking the cab. Back on the embankment, we’re soon hoping that the underfoot conditions don’t last too long because, although the terrain remains flat, the grass is pretty high, with some encroaching shrubbery, and therefore quite tiring to get through. We still manage to achieve just over 3 miles in the first hour by which time our hopes have been realised and there’s an easily identifiable track as the embankment turns to the south west to run alongside the River Welland. Whilst the countryside around us is as flat and unremarkable as it was on our last trip, the views are considerably improved by what is a dry and increasingly warm day. The sort of weather to create a bit of a thirst and, when we go over Fosdyke Bridge almost at the end of our second hour (having yet again crossed the meridian), we can’t resist the temptation of the Ship, our intended finishing point on the last trip. Our stay is a mere 4 minutes, but enough time to have a refreshing half and decide that it would have been a very comfortable nestler if we’d managed to reach it in June. Now on the southern side of the bridge, we turn north east and spend the next hour or so walking back along the other side of the Welland – and back into the eastern hemisphere. We’re maintaining a pace of about 3 mph and, after around 10 miles, we finally catch sight of the Wash and turn right to continue parallel to the coast. However, between us and the sea, there’s still a wide area of marshland which around Holbeach St Matthew becomes – or incorporates – an extensive MoD weapons range. And there is now a narrow road alongside the embankment (for MoD traffic) onto which we occasionally divert. Sometimes this is because of a gap or obstruction in the embankment, and sometimes we simply decide on a change of underfoot conditions. But along one stretch, there are notices advising that there are birds nesting in the marshes, and we do catch sight of what our rural affairs correspondent informs us is a partridge with chicks. Not just any old partridge, but an English partridge which apparently makes it a rare sighting – so probably just as well that our rural affairs correspondent doesn’t have his shotgun with him. By now it’s pretty clear that we will arrive at Gedney Drove earlier than the arranged collection time of 6:45 and so, shortly before 5 o’clock and with just over 3 miles to go, we decide to phone Ace Cabs to see if we can bring forward the booking. John’s ETA of 6:15 is regarded as being a tad optimistic by Gary – who is feeling increasingly weary – so we rearrange the pick up for 6:25. In fact, we get to Gedney Drove just before 6:10, but Ace Cabs very conveniently arrive just 5 minutes later and we reach the Anchor in Sutton Bridge around 6:30. By now Gary’s weariness has reached a stage where, according to John, he is receiving sympathetic (or pitying?) looks from the bar staff. He is, however, capable of joining John and Mike in a post-arrival pint and of ascertaining that, whilst Ace Cabs cannot provide a car at our previously booked time of 8 a.m. tomorrow (school runs again), they can get one to us at 7:30. Given that breakfast at the Anchor is from 7 o’clock, this is not too much of an inconvenience. We’re taken to or rooms which are in a building over the road from the pub and prove to be very comfortable with efficient showers. By the time we reconvene for supper Gary has recovered, but his decision not to follow the others in ordering a large plate of fish chips and peas, and going for scampi instead, is regarded by John as a rather “wet” option. As is the request for “just a glass” of white wine as an aperitif. The realisation that three glasses of white wine would cost 75p more than a bottle leads to the inevitable result, and Gary ends up making a pretty fair contribution to the ensuing (and further) consumption. But no stickies for anyone before retiring.                      

Day 121 – Clay Hole to Marsh Farm (via Boston): 10.2m: 3.2h

The radiators in our rooms (together with large amounts of paper towel provided by the hotel) have done a very effective drying job on our bags, clothes and boots. However, the prospects of completing our planned walk today – just over 15 miles to the Ship Inn at Fosdyke Bridge in time to pick up a cab booked for 2:30 to take us to Spalding – are problematic. First, the weather is dreadful. Heavy rain with a strong, and quite biting, wind. And secondly, having hoped to get a cab to return us to Clay Hole in time for an 8:30 start, we discover that school runs mean that we can’t be picked up from the hotel until 9:00 at the earliest. During our extra time in the hotel lounge, we witness two men at the bar having a couple of beers (we assume – or hope – that they’re night workers at the end of their shift) and John and Mike venture outside to establish that our route from Clay Hole through Boston will bring us back past the hotel because we’ll be unable to cross the river at an old swing bridge a few hundred yards away. This serves to confirm an earlier provisional decision that we should leave our rucksacks at the hotel and collect them later which will hopefully mean that we’ll have some dry clothes when we finish. We’re picked up shortly after 9:00 and we’re out in the rain at Clay Hole around 9:30, unencumbered by luggage – and by scenery. Once again an embankment with flat fields on one side and the river and more flat fields (and a couple of industrial sites) on the other. The rather monotonous nature of the walk is illustrated by the fact that we fail to notice the point where we cross back into the western hemisphere and that one of the few memorable events is Ben’s attempt to make a connection between cricket and walking with Mike towards the Boston Stump. The somewhat tenuous link is “stump mike”. So not surprisingly, the prospect of returning to the Quayside lounge becomes more and more attractive and, on our wet and bedraggled arrival there after over an hour and a half’s walking, it is clear that there’s neither the time nor the inclination to try and get to Fosdyke Bridge. Instead, we settle down to agree other arrangements over warming cups of coffee for John, Mike and Gary, and an early and equally warming glass of red for Ben. We decide that the rucksacks will remain at the hotel and that we’ll walk another 5 miles or so back along the south side of the river to Marsh Farm where there’s a lane for a cab to collect us and return us again to Boston. John also gets the cab booked for the Ship Inn to pick us up at the Quayside. By the time we leave the lounge, the rain isn’t quite as heavy as before but, after half a mile, we have to divert away from the path leading to the river because of some flood barrier works which, if the water in the yards which we pass is anything to go by, aren’t yet wholly effective. It proves to be quite a long diversion which we soon realise could make us a bit late for taxi rendezvous time. So when we eventually reach the embankment, the walk gradually develops into an easterly yomp (with the meridian going unnoticed yet again) and we arrive at the Marsh Farm lane as the cab is driving towards us. By 1:45 we’re back at the Quayside and, as it doesn’t serve lunch, John pops out to a nearby shop and returns with crab sandwiches. We have time to enjoy these, wash them down and change into gratifyingly dry clothes before our diverted cab arrives. Mike has decided that it's easier for him to stay in Boston and catch a direct train to Nottingham rather than accompanying the rest of us to Spalding. John and Ben get a train from there to catch their connections at Peterborough, whilst Gary gets a train north to join Sally for a couple of days in Lincoln.

Postscript: After we left Wainfleet, heavy rain continued to fall leading to the town being flooded a couple of days later. Roads were impassable, the rail line from Boston was closed and a state of emergency was declared.