Some works
which are being carried out by Network Rail near Derby have put the mockers on
John’s customary outbound travel timetable. He therefore stays in London on the
eve of the walk and then catches an early morning train with Ben and Gary from
King’s Cross to Hull. This arrives shortly after 10 o’clock – only a few
minutes later than Mike’s train from York – and our cab driver from the
previous trip has us back in Withernsea just before 11. Consistent with
comments on many earlier walks, it is necessary to bang on about our good
fortune as regards weather and tides. After two or three weeks of pretty foul
weather, to include Storm Ali 7 days ago, we today have late September sun and
clear skies overhead. And with our arrival being 3 hours after high tide, we
have the availability of a beach underfoot and the prospect of being able,
later in the day, to walk out to and back from Spurn Point without getting our
feet wet. So our first 9 miles are spent on firm East Yorkshire sand, with
little to break the view of sea and sky apart from an off-shore wind farm and,
on the low cliffs above us at Easington, a well patrolled gas terminal. We come
slightly inland to reach a path which marks the entrance to the Spurn Nature
Reserve, but are soon back on a narrow stretch of sand which lies between the
entrance and Spurn Head itself and which, at the next high tide in about 5
hours, will probably be at least part submerged. At the other side of the sand,
a 2 mile long pathway leads to the lighthouse although, for the last few
hundred yards, John follows an alternative route along a parallel raised
embankment. We stop briefly at the lighthouse to buy much needed cold drinks
and then continue past the lifeboat station and through bushes to reach the
Point itself where the Humber meets the North Sea. An amazing spot. From here,
it’s a short drop down to the beach and we decide to follow this route, on the
North Sea side, for some of the journey back to the Spurn entrance. However,
Ben’s progress is being slowed by a sore achilles, so Mike scrambles up a short
but steep sand bank to see whether it affords access to the embankment which
John used earlier. It does, but Ben thinks that it would be easier for him to
keep walking along the beach than to try and climb the bank. Mike stays on the
embankment and the four of us are re-united by the sand at the inland end of
the 2 mile pathway. From here we return to the Spurn entrance and then spend
around 30 minutes walking on minor roads to reach our overnight stop alongside
the Humber estuary, the Crown & Anchor pub at Kilnsea. We arrive at 5:15
having completed 17.5 miles in just over 6 hours since leaving Withernsea. The
next 45 minutes are spent in the bar during which time (1) we have a couple of
pints; (2) we determine through a lengthy heads and tails process who will room
with whom (for the first time in several years we are not in single rooms
tonight); (3) we order our supper so that we can eat at 7 o’clock, before a
“large group” arrives at 7:30; and (4) following negotiations between John and
an ostensibly intransigent landlady who has said that breakfast isn’t served
until 9 a.m., we also order breakfast so that it will be on the table at 8:45.
Almost as exhausted by the admin as by the walk, we freshen up (the sharing arrangements
are John & Mike and Ben & Gary) and return to the bar in time for 7
o’clock supper service or, in John and Mike’s case, in time for another pint
before supper. The food is good (fish cakes and chips for Gary; fish, chips and
mushy peas for the rest) and is accompanied by a bottle of white and the long
awaited return of a bottle of Shiraz. There’s no evidence of it also being
accompanied by a particularly large group of other diners. The main course is
finished soon after 8 and, given our uncharacteristically late breakfast time,
we don’t see any need to retire too early, so we while away another hour or so
with three of us (Ben being the exception) having an equally uncharacteristic
dessert and all of us having a less uncharacteristic sticky. Whilst ordering
the stickies, John has a chat with a bloke at the bar who reckons that we
should be able to follow a path alongside the Humber for most of our planned
walk tomorrow, although some bramble patches near the end may necessitate an
inland diversion. Duly encouraged, and having polished off the stickies, we
climb the wooden hill to our rooms.
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
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