Day 67 - Saturday 28 December 2002 - Gosport to Stokes Bay

 3 miles walked today

751.5 miles walked in total (11.216 average)

Another short day again today.  It was very hard to get up as I've had lay ins for the past week.  Consequently when the alarm went off at eight o'clock, I ignored it for an hour!

I was finally parked up and on the Gosport ferry at 10.30 am.  The sea was quite choppy, although the sky was blue and cloudless and the sun was very warm.

The path followed the Millennium Walk, past Haslar Marina, the Royal Navy Submarine Museum, Haslar Hospital and HM Prison.  Rather worryingly, the hospital and prison looked exactly the same, although there seemed to be caravans parked up in the prison car park.

Just past the prison, a path cut through Stokes Bay Golf Club out to Fort Gilkicker.  There were loads of people out and about walking.   Perhaps we've all made New Year Resolutions to get fit and get more fresh air!

The path became a shingle track past the fort and then turned into the prom as it went past the Inshore Rescue Boat and numerous car parks on the front.  I'm glad to say that I didn't see too many people sitting in their cars looking out to sea.

I could feel my feet starting to rub again - the last time I wore my new boots, I rubbed such horrendous blisters that I could only wear open backed sandals for a fortnight.   Bearing this in mind, I decided to give up after only three miles and wear my boots in gradually.  This decision coincided with the bus stop going back to the Gosport ferry!

It's been a glorious day - fantastic to see so many people out enjoying the sunshine, rather than the sales, and the views over to Ryde on the Isle of Wight were superb.

Day 66 - Saturday 9 November 2002 - Fort Cumberland to Gosport

5 miles walked today

748.5 miles walked in total (11.34 average)

After a quick detour via the laundrette, I was parked at Fort Cumberland and ready to walk at 9.45 am.  There had been much rejoicing when I woke up this morning that it wasn't raining - I've been convinced for two weeks now that the caravan was on the verge of setting sail.

Walking past Fort Cumberland was very thought provoking - I'd worked there for two years so am quite familiar with the area.  Loads has changed - the flats that were being built back then are now finished and occupied and everything looks generally tidier.

I got out onto the prom and it wasn't long before I had to stop and attend to my feet.  Andy has bought me new boots - Brasher Hillmasters - for Christmas.  I've always aspired to owning Brasher boots.  However, stomping up and down the office to try and break them in is no substitute for "proper" walking, so I'd managed to rub horrendous blisters.  (Andy had also bought me a Berghaus jacket, but I was hoping that I wouldn't need a waterproof today.)

It's been a bit on the chilly side and I've worn a teeshirt, a sweatshirt and a fleece to keep the wind out.

As well as the general locality, it was also weird walking, as part of my "big plan", a route I used to walk to work occasionally when Mick, our works manager, needed the pick up truck after I'd finished my working hours!   Mind you, these walks were usually done very briskly with much cursing, swearing and black looks!

I passed all the clubs that had been our haunts on nights out and where much madness and mayhem had occurred, not the least being Andy dancing in just his underpants on one of our first clubbing nights out.  This was before I got together with him and I was so impressed that I snogged his best mate!

At the Pyramids, a part club/ part swimming pool complex, I stopped again for more blister relief.  My feet have had quite a detrimental effect on speed and miles covered today.  Still, it's just great that it's dry enough to walk.

I passed the Royal Marines Museum, the bandstand, Henry VIII's 1545 castle, the D Day Museum, the hovercraft and the Victory's original anchor.   A car was parking by the Royal Navy War Memorial and three men and a woman emerged, the men wearing black suits and medals, and the woman holding a wreath.   I'd forgotten that tomorrow is Remembrance Sunday.  It was a very personal moment for them so I moved away before the wreath was laid.

This contrasted with the next stretch which went right through Southsea Fair.  What a nightmare!

Rope Walk is a millennium project which follows the sea wall, past the Royal Garrison Church, around Old Portsmouth to Spice Island and up to the cathedral.  So much history.

I love Portsmouth and will be very sorry when I eventually have to leave here.  From the cathedral, it was a short stretch past Gun Wharf and to the Gosport ferry, where I decided to call it a day.   I hopped on the ferry and headed into Gosport for lunch before heading back to my car.

Sore feet and Portsmouth harbour stopped play!

Day 65 - Saturday 12 October 2002 - Langstone to Fort Cumberland

5 miles walked today

743.5 miles walked in total (11.438 average)

I parked in the Ship Inn car park at 9.45 am to start walking - a later start than usual because of a quick laundrette stop en route!

I walked over the bridge and took a right turn out to the Hayling Billy path.  This path is the old railway route from Havant to Hayling Island and the sleepers have now been torn up and used for the sea defences around Langstone harbour.

It started off very grey, but there were bits of blue sky and the clouds were very fast moving.   The sun soon came out and it was gloriously bright, despite being very blustery and cold.  I almost wished I'd brought my gloves with me.

The path had a slight deviation out to the oyster lagoon, one of only ten sites in the UK which is under close observation because of little terns.   The adults fly back from Africa each April and nest here.  As soon as the fledgelings are big enough to catch their own fish, it's October and time for them to go back to Africa for the winter.  I saw a lot of seagulls and I knew I could hear the familiar "peep peep" of oyster catchers, but I couldn't see them.  Time to get the binoculars out!  I sat down for a while and scanned the shore line and caught sight of half a dozen or so of them.  They're so distinctive with their long red beaks - lovely birds.

Amongst the non-flying wildlife I've seen today were horses, a dead rat and a hare which was quite exciting as it's only the second I've ever seen, the first being while walking the Suffolk coast.

I had terrific views over to Portsdown Hill, Portsmouth and the Isle of Wight.  I didn't need a map today, as I've already done this walk a number of times, the most memorable being after work a couple of summers ago with my friend, Vicki Wilkinson.  We took a picnic of bread, cheese and red wine and sat on the beach up by the bridge and watched all the lights of Pompey come up.  It was a bit tricky on the way back though - quite dark and difficult walking, especially carrying our glasses of wine!

The Hayling Billy path emerges from behind the Station Theatre, the old Hayling Island railway station, which has been taken over by the Hayling Island Amateur Dramatic Society.  I've seen a couple of productions there - I used to live on Hayling for a year when I first transferred down here from Norfolk.  It's been very surreal and very comforting walking bits of coast I know.  I'm still looking forward to the unknown though and walking parts of the coast I'm totally unfamiliar with.

From the theatre, I was on roads past Hayling's poshest houses out on to Ferry Road and down to the ferry over to Fort Cumberland, where I worked for two years before working at Havant, Cardiff for six months and then back to Portsmouth since Easter this year.

Taking the ferry was also a bizarre experience - I used to commute to work on the ferry!  It's a very busy boat - I counted ten of us on the way over to Fort Cumberland and seven of us on the way back.

There were lots of people out on their boats today.  There were also lots of people in the Ferry Boat Inn where I stopped for my customary pint of cider to finish a walk.  Not many miles covered today, but a great day nonetheless.

Day 64 - Saturday 5 October 2002 - Emsworth to Langstone

3 miles walked today

738.5 miles walked in total (11.539 average)

We've had a fantastic day.  We had to do a bit of shuffling with cars this morning, leaving one at Langstone and the other at Emsworth, but ten o'clock found Andy and I in Emsworth having a big breakfast to set us up for the day.

We followed the footpath out from Emsworth past the ponds and saw thirty or so swans being given bread by a family.  This bread seemed to be a food source for the hundreds of grey mullet that we saw too.   Andy explained that you'll always find them around sewage outfall pipes, but, because water companies in general are having to clean up after themselves following EC regulations, the populations of grey mullet, together with mussels and prawns which also feed on sewage, will decline rapidly.

The path itself was quite interesting - it was great having Andy with me today as he's explained loads.  The path was concrete, but wasn't a dead flat surface - it was lumped together in small mounds, but in very regular shapes.   Apparently, that's because they'd never have got a concrete wagon down to the shore and so sandbags had been filled with dry sand and cement, piled up along the shore and, when it had got wet from the sea, had become concrete.  Excellent!  I was also shown the Gabian baskets, which are square shaped wire baskets filled with boulders.

Just past Emsworth, the path took a detour inland through a churchyard.  However, Andy declared that the water wasn't that deep and we could probably paddle around.  So we did.  For about half a mile in thigh deep water!   It was excellent fun though and provided some fantastic photo opportunities!

When we could, we climbed back onto the wall, over a barbed wire fence (which was a bit tricky) and then through a cowfield.  We managed to avoid all the cowpats - and there were lots of them! - to make it out to another barbed wire fence which we climbed over to get back to the wall.  This manoeuvre entailed clinging onto a tree backwards with all fours and hoping not to fall into the water.  I'm not bringing him again.

Just past this obstacle, we were on the path proper and not flouting any more footpath/ walking rules.  It wasn't far to the Ship Inn at Langstone where we had a well deserved drink and sat in the sun, trying to dry our trousers out.  The boots had no chance!

Day 63 - Saturday 7 September 2002 - West Chidham to Emsworth

10 miles walked today

735.5 miles walked in total (11.67 average)

Katie and I were walking at 9.20 am this morning, having parked by the Old House at Home pub at Chidham.  We had to walk a couple of hundred yards along the road until we found the footpath that led out to the sea and which then stayed true to the coastline all day.

At Prinsted, we stumbled upon a group of Sea Scouts with their compasses practising their triangulation.  It all sounded a bit complicated to me, but I think Katie knew what they were up to.  But then, she is an engineer!

The path around Thorney Island is very well protected.  The island itself is entirely Ministry of Defence owned and there are electronic gates to get on and off the island with a manned barrier on the road which runs down the middle of the island.  We pressed the intercom and were let in with no worries at all.  The cameras at the gate were trained on us though and we obviously looked like proper walkers and no threat to national security!

Halfway down the east side of the island is a small church with two quite separate graveyards.  The first one is full of 1940 graves and the names were all German.  The older churchyard had graves dating back to 1729 and one had a skull and crossbones on it, something I've not seen before.

Just past the church is the Thorney Island Sailing Club and we were hoping it would be open as we needed a loo. No such luck!  Katie suggested dashing into the churchyard but we didn't think that was a good idea, given the amount of cameras watching us!  Just past the sailing club, we found a youth hostel type place for the RYA (which we assumed meant Royal Yachting Association) and we nipped in there to use the facilities!

As we followed the path around the island, we saw a few twitchers - one tattooed chap with bovver boots on was cycling around, but kept stopping to make notes in his book.  He pointed out a peregrine falcon to us which apparently had "put the grey plover up" and we saw a swarm of dunlins along the shore.  We spotted lots of cormorants all day too.

We said goodbye to the man and carried on past a patrol vehicle with two chaps wearing all the camouflage outfit.  They could see where we were going and that we were heading out to the west gate along the path.  So, when we got to the gate and couldn't get through it, it came as something of a surprise that these blokes hadn't mentioned to us that the gate is no longer used.   I got on the intercom again and had quite an interesting chat with an MOD representative, but Katie took over when I began to get a bit overwrought and informed the man that I wasn't going to walk back to the east gate for another three hours.   We were told that there were signs on the east gate stating that the west gate wasn't in use.  I (politely) pointed out that there was no sign and, furthermore, if there had been a sign and we'd seen it, we would never have attempted to walk around the island.  Gggrrr!

Katie (who is much more of a diplomat than I'll ever be) asked the jobsworth if we could effectively trespass and walk along the tarmac track back to the middle of the island and join the road to get out to Emsworth.  After a brief pause, he assured us that this would be ok.  Humph!

So we followed the road off the island through Emsworth Marina and out to find a pub.  It was a shame about this slight altercation, although we did have a bit of a giggle about it as we carried on.  We really enjoyed the walk today around the island - it was very bracing and we felt completely invigorated from our exercise.

Roll on the next time!

Day 62 - Sunday 11 August 2002 - Bosham Hoe to West Chidham

4.5 miles walked today

725.5 miles walked in total (11.70 average)

Nicholas and I were ready to walk this morning at ten o'clock.  We'd planned to have a full weekend of walking, but things have not gone according to plan so far.  I had arranged to meet Nicholas' bus at Heathrow on Friday night at seven o'clock, but, due to rush hour traffic, he hadn't turned up until eight thirty.   And then, of course, we had to find somewhere to have tea and then go and buy provisions for our packed lunch for walking, so we didn't get to bed until gone midnight.  Which meant a certain young man didn't want to get up on Saturday morning when the alarm went off, even though I crashed around the caravan and made as much noise as I possibly could to wake him up!  By the time Nicholas did finally emerge from the sleeping bag, it had started to chuck it down and walking was called off for the day.

However, we had a fun day around Portsmouth - our adventure included the ferry over to Gosport, the Submarine Museum and Explosion! Museum (a converted munitions factory at Priddy's Hard at Gosport), pizza in Southsea and Austin Powers at the cinema at Gun Wharf.  Phew!  Action packed or what?!

Because there is nowhere to park at Bosham Hoe, we had to leave the car at Bosham, cross the causeway back to where I finished the last time and then back over the causeway to start!

We skirted the harbour and the church to try and find our path, which was very overgrown and the sign had even been hidden behind a garden hedge!  Our only option was to follow the road out of Bosham and find the path where it joined up a bit further round the coast - a very posh elderly lady wearing a poncho asked if we were lost and we showed her our map and said we wanted to get out to the water's edge.  She said we were very nearly at the path and congratulated us on our map reading skills!

The path was quite boggy and it wasn't long before Nicholas' trainers weren't white any more, but a very fetching greeny/ grey colour.  The path followed the water all the way along and we walked through farmers' fields by the waterside, where we saw all sorts of produce being grown:  cauliflowers; cabbages; spuds; marrows; beetroot; runner beans; spring onions; parsley and basil

Eventually, the path ran out and we were on road past a very big pond where we saw a heron.  After a short way along the road, we were back on another footpath past massive greenhouses towards the church, where we'd decided to eat our sandwiches.   After a short break at the churchyard, we covered the short distance to the pub where, true to form, the rain came down!   What a good place to stop!

We didn't get too many miles done today - I knew it would be a shorter day's walking because we had to get Nicholas back to Heathrow to get the bus up to Norwich.  However, it was good fun and I really enjoyed it.  Looking forward to the next time!