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!