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!