Weather: Windy & cool
Distance:
20.5 km (12.7 miles) Total Distance: 2884 miles
I was
up at 6.00am and sneaking around the house again so as to not wake my hosts. It took about an hour to drive over
to Skiffling and I decided to park in the village and walk down to the
estuary. It was a breezy morning but
fortunately it stopped raining as I crossed the Humber Bridge and did not start
again till I was heading back in the car. After about the first hour the sun came out but because of the cold wind
off the North Sea it was hat-weather for most of the time.
The
fist hours walk was pretty non-descript – taking up where yesterday’s left off.
I made my first stop of the day just past Kilnsea, ducking down just off the
path to get out of the wind. I had
decided to walk Spurn Head because everyone would ask me if I did and because
it was so famous.
I was glad I did
because it had a settlement at the end so was strictly in my rules. It was also an interesting experience. On the way down I kept mainly to the road> There were hardly any cars around at that time in the morning. At about two thirds of the way down a
footpath appeared on the right that took me over the dune area and then into
the settlement. I passed the lighthouses
and the row of small houses evidently there for the pilots who were based on
the head, their boats moored off the jetty.
I climbed up onto the headland itself and then scrambled down onto the
beach at the very head and found a log to sit on for a break and a look at the
passing super-tanker.
On the
way back north the cold wind was in my face but I kept to the beach for the
first couple of miles. I then went back
on the road and was amazed to see the remains of the old road that had been
washed away. There was some evidence of
the tracks of an old railway still embedded in parts of the existing road.
At the
neck of the head I cut off to the right and along the cliff top – cliff is a
bit of an exaggeration as it is only a couple of meters high. The caravan park at Kilnsea was a real mess, a real lunar landscape. It got a bit
more pleasant further on but not much to be honest. It was scrubland all the
way to the beach and some very man-made looking ponds. The gas terminals at Easington came closer
indicating the end of my walk. I had one last sit down to admire the sea
before heading up into the village.
I knew
I had an hour or so to wait for a bus and I wanted to catch the start of the
San Marino Grand Prix so I popped my head into all three of the pubs but they
were all doing meals and no TV. I
decided to cut my losses and try to hitch / walk back and got a lift just as I
was coming to the outskirts of the village.
Once I
had changed my boots I started my drive back – popping my head into a few more
pubs but it was the same story. I was
tired and thirsty so stopped at the Safeway again in Saltend and had a pot of
tea before heading home. I picked up a
hitchhiker on the outskirts of Hull who wanted to go the Liverpool. I made a bit of a diversion and took him to
near the Ferry bridge services. He had
just been on a weekend's course for a Solidarity organisation – something he
described as being similar to Raleigh International where you get sponsorship
and go to Malawi in Africa for 6 months – he had to get £6,000 sponsorship to
go. It all sounded plausible but when I
looked it up on the Internet back home I had my doubts, it was all to do with
finding yourself and not so much to do with helping others.
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