Weather: Fine, warm, sunny
intervals.
Distance: 19km ( 11.8
miles) Total Distance:
2486miles
I was up by 6.30am and walking by
7.00am. I parked the car near a disused
bridge in Cattawade and headed off down through an industrial estate. The path was hopping with wildlife, in
particular rabbits, on this fine dry morning.
I was surprised that the fence around the ICI factory was full of holes
and not very secure. The path went by a
picturesque pond and then doubled back around the factory before going over the
railway and onto the riverbank. I was
very impressed by the fine condition of the path that had obviously been well
maintained just recently.
Sutton Mill was a fine house with lots
of interesting buildings and gardens.
The path sort of led through their front garden but there were no nasty
anti-rambler signposts up. At Dovehouse
Point the path led inland up to Sutton through fields. Turning right into the tranquil and well to
do village.
At the church the path once
again went through someone’s back garden and gave excellent views of the very
impressive Royal Hospital School which itself had views over the estuary. The path now lost height again down to the
coast.
From here on the state of the
path deteriorated and was either along the muddy / sandy banks of the estuary
itself or along the edges of fields many of which had been ploughed up to the
edge putting off would be walkers. Fortunately the crops had been mainly cut so
there was no forcing myself through wheat fields. Some places even had signs up saying private
land even though there is a footpath on the map. The potato fields were about the worse with
their deeply rutted nature. At times the
path led through woods which was much more pleasant. Towards Shotley Gate the path again improved
and I got there an hour before the bus was due to depart.
Being early I decided to hitch and very
slowly strolled out of the village up the main road. I was picked up by a young couple in a BMW
who had been out house hunting. A
relative of his was a Sunderland fan and it was he and the fan I had seen at
the station yesterday who was the happier following the 2-0 win over Ipswich
last night! I got dropped at the turning
for Holbrook and soon got another lift into Holbrook from a middle-aged man
living in the village I think. I got
dropped outside a wonderful tea shop and went in for a coffee and a piece of
chocolate cake and a read of the papers!
I walked to take a look at the Royal Hospital School and ran into people
doing a treasure hunt who stopped to ask me if I recognised pictures but were
not the sort to give me a lift. Once I got as far as Sutton I got a lift from a
Wolves supporter whom was down visiting his mum and had been out on the beach
in Harkstead. I got dropped off at
Cattawade and went to the pub and watched the Belgium Grand Prix over a
Guinness. I missed the first start that
ended in a multi car pile up. The
restart and rest of the race was also full of incident. Hill eventually won his first win since
joining Jordan. Shumaker got very upset with Coulthard and blamed him for a
crash in which Schumaker ran into the back of Coulthard.
Back at the campsite I got talking to a
Dutch couple who were camping next to me.
They had bikes and I thought they had just got off the ferry for a short
ride around Essex, but they had been 1200 miles all over England and were very
impressed with the Yorkshire Dales.
I tried to eat in the pub that night
but it was not serving food so instead I drove to Ipswich to have a look at the
Orwell Bridge to make sure I could walk over it and got a Chinese take away and
took it back to the river side at Manningtree to eat before going back to the
camp site for an early night.
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