Walk 109 -- Cleethorpes, via Grimsby, to Pyewipe

Ages: Colin was 63 years and 29 days. Rosemary was 60 years and 171 days.

Weather: Cloudy, turning brighter. A cold wind.

Location: Cleethorpes to Pyewipe, via Grimsby.

Distance: 7 miles.

Total distance: 857½ miles.

Terrain: Concrete proms, seawalls and pavements. A grass verge by a main road. Flat.

Tide: Out.

Rivers: No.45, the River Freshney at Grimsby Docks.

Ferries: None.

Piers: No.25, Cleethorpes.

Kissing gates: None.

Pubs: Willy’s Pub & Brewery in Cleethorpes (quieter this non-Bank Holiday lunchtime) where we drank Willy’s Original Bitter and Dickson’s Major Bitter. No.1 Refreshment Room, also in Cleethorpes, where we enjoyed Highwood’s Dark Mild and Barn Dance.

‘English Heritage’ properties: None.

Ferris wheels: No.4, in Cleethorpes—but it WASN’T RUNNING!

Diversions: None.

How we got there and back: We drove up the day before and set up camp at Barton-upon-Humber. (The campsite proved to be rather expensive for its limited facilities, but it was the only one anywhere near where we wanted to be so we had to put up with it.) We drove, with bikes on the back of the car, to Great Coates where, after much argument, we parked in a Close on the edge of the village very near to an enormous industrial estate called Pyewipe. Then we cycled through Grimsby and Cleethorpes—me navigating with the map in my new cycling map-case screwed to my handlebars—to the Greenwich Mean Line signpost. We tried to call in at a pub in Grimsby on the way, but it wasn’t open. By the time we got to Cleethorpes Willy’s pub was open, so we stopped for a drink. After taking some photos at the signpost, we cycled back to the place where we ended the last Walk, and padlocked our bikes to a fence.

At the end, we had a cup of tea. Then we drove via the No.1 Refreshment Room (in Cleethorpes Station) to collect our bikes—and back to our campsite along main roads because it was quicker.

We had hardly locked up the bikes when Colin diverted into a Nature reserve to answer a call of nature. There he came across these wild orchids. I had already walked on quite a bit towards Cleethorpes, expecting him to catch up with me. I was reluctant to return, so I took these photographs later in the day when we came back to collect the bikes. A notice by the Nature Reserve informed us:
“The Humber estuary is of global importance for wading birds and wildfowl. It is during the winter months that bird numbers are at their highest when they might migrate from breeding grounds in Northern Europe to feed on the invertebrates that live in the mudflats and salt marshes.

The salt marshes and sand dunes are an important habitat for wildflowers, some of which are nationally rare. The council has designated the coast from Cleethorpes Leisure Centre to Humberston Fitties together with the old sand dune that dates back to the 12th Century on The Boating Lake as a Local Nature Reserve.”

The area they were referring to stretches from about three miles back—where we first went on the beach and thought we were in Cleethorpes—to a point about half a mile further on.

We continued along the sand-dusted prom, passing an abandoned shopping trolley on the way, and came to some gardens where stood the famous ‘leaking boot’ statue. That was the only thing Colin could remember about Cleethorpes from his holiday there as a child. He only came once, and he can’t remember how old he was—probably about seven. He was sure the statue had been moved, it didn’t seem to him to be in the ‘right place’, and he had a feeling that this was a replica of the original one which had been stolen. He was also convinced it was formerly in a round pond, now it is in a rectangular one. The garden, including the statue and pond with two fountains, is now dedicated to the memory of that tragic young lady, Princess Diana. An engraved stone bears the legend:

In

Memory of

Diana

Princess of Wales

1961 to 1997

“The People’s Princess”

The original ‘leaking boot’ statue was much older than that! If Colin remembers it from his holiday at the age of seven, that would be circa 1949—twelve years before Princess Diana was born.We sat on a bench near the statue and ate our lunch. We huddled behind a hedge to keep out of the wind, trying to remember that it was June!
Then we continued. Cleethorpes is a delightful seaside resort—it has a beautiful sandy beach where people were playing volley ball, a jolly little road-train, pretty lights (pity about the crane) and even a beach bum!! Colin noticed her before I did this time, so I knew he had recovered his senses!


We passed the ‘Leaking Boot’ chippie and Willy’s pub where we had earlier had a drink. There was a nice artificial waterfall in some gardens opposite.Then we came to the pier, which is very short. I don’t know if it was any longer in the past, we couldn’t find out any information about it. Colin said he didn’t remember it, but he seemed to have given up on the nostalgia front. We couldn’t walk down the short length of it because it was roped off while some workmen fixed the lights in one of the gantries.

The next part of the promenade was attractively laid out in coloured brick. We saw some donkeys on the beach—yes, Cleethorpes is quite a pleasant seaside resort despite its location in the Humber Estuary and right next-door to Grimsby. We came upon a Ferris wheel! It was only a small one—for children really—but it was closed so I didn’t get a chance to ride on it.Soon we came to the border between Cleethorpes and Grimsby—what a difference! Cleethorpes was all seasidey despite its plethora of notices about safety which we thought a little OTT even in this day and age. Suddenly we were in a depressed industrial area, just like that! The concrete prom continued but we lost the hand rails. To our left was a railway backed by dense terraced housing. No more pretty lights or little shops. Even the abandoned supermarket trolley was left to rust in the sand, not neatly parked on the prom!

We continued for about two hundred yards towards a large industrial building, then we came to a fence. We could have climbed through the hole left by vandals, but we didn’t see the point. We would only have had to turn back when we reached the dock, and got moaned at for trespassing—anyway there was a notice on the fence telling us there was no unauthorised access.

The only thing that concerned us was how do we get over the railway? We looked around, and saw that there was a footbridge a few yards back, so we headed towards it. As we climbed the steps we noticed a group of children standing on top.
They looked as if they were going to throw something at an approaching train as it passed underneath us, so I gave them my ‘teacher stare’ and they didn’t. A group of adults who approached from the other way did just the same thing, and it was amusing to see these cocky kids dissolve into nothingness—what our son, Chris, used to call ‘turned into a flat balloon’! The steps going down the other side were blocked by a group of ‘winos’ whom we had to step over. One of them waved his bottle at us and asked, “Have you been to lots of places?” We carried on walking purposefully while I answered, “Yes, quite a few!” Colin said, “You ought to try it sometime!” and the lad—for he was only young—replied, “Yeah, I think I will!” He tried to stand up but his legs thought otherwise, so he sank back down again on the steps. How sad that these young people, with their whole lives before them, can think of nothing beyond vandalism and how much alcohol they can consume.

Grimsby is a grim place—and so close to Cleethorpes which is delightful. We passed street after street of terraced houses with tall industrial buildings opposite them. No front gardens, and only room for a tiny yard at the back. Colin kept talking about the fish market his mother took him to in Grimsby all those years ago when he was a child. He was so impressed with the quantity and variety of fish for sale that he still remembers it. But we didn’t find anything like that. We looked through a gateway and saw a few boxes of fish, and we passed a fish retail outlet. On our last day we returned there to buy some fish to take home and put in the freezer, but most of it was imported! As we walked the streets the smell reminded us of Bolivia—we both thought of it simultaneously. It was back in 1993 that we toured that fascinating country where flushing lavatories are a luxury for the rich and for tourists—everyone else pees in the street. The smell of ammonia is quite nauseous, and it was in Grimsby that we were reminded of it!

We came to the entrance of Grimsby Dock. There was an impressive building with a clock tower, and in front of it a statue of Prince Albert. On one side of his plinth it said:To commemorate the inauguration and completion of these great works this memorial has been erected by Sir Edward William Watkin, MP, chairman of the Manchester, Sheffield and Lincolnshire Railway Company 1879.

On a second side we read:

Extract from speech of the Prince Consort on the 18th April 1849.

“We have been laying the Foundation of a Dock, not only as a place of refuge and refitment for our mercantile marine, and calculated to receive the greatest steamers of Her Majesty’s Navy, but I trust it will be the foundation of a great commercial Port.
This work in future ages when we shall long have quitted this scene, and when perhaps our names will be forgotten, will I hope become a new centre of life with the vast and ever increasing commerce of the world, and a most important link in the connection of East and West.”

A third side bore the legend:

The New Dock

Connecting the Royal Dock

with the old dock,

was opened by their Royal Highnesses

The Prince and Princess of Wales

On the 22nd July 1879

The fourth side told us that the statue was Prince Albert who laid the foundation stone in 1849.We were a bit puzzled as to where to go next. There didn’t seem to be any way across the railway for pedestrians, though a road was crossing it high above our heads. Eventually, hidden away, we found some steps which led us up on to the bridge. The road was very busy, but we did have a footpath to walk along—noisy and polluted but relatively safe. We descended some steps the other side and found ourselves at a road junction. One roadsign was pointing the way to the ‘Fish Docks’, and we did idly wonder if the elusive fish market that Colin remembered from fifty-five plus years ago was there. We decided that it was history, and everywhere looked barred off with barbed wire anyway. We could see the tower which marks the entrance to Grimsby Docks, but couldn’t see any way of getting there. In the end we decided to give it a miss on the grounds that it was all industrial (additional rule no.3) and, looking at the map, we found that it was a dead end as well (additional rule no.2).

We took a short loop through an industrial wasteland—if only to get away from that noisy road for five minutes—then we crossed the dock inlet. There we saw a fishing boat come into the harbour, one of the few that are left of the once proud fleet. We wondered what Prince Albert would think of the state of Grimsby Docks now—the fishing industry in the doldrums and no ‘mercantile marine’ nor ‘Her Majesty’s Navy’. Everything is imported these days, our roads are clogged by huge lorries carrying the stuff in, and many of our Docks have sunk into dereliction.

Except for the cars! Like Sheerness on the Isle of Sheppey, Grimsby Dock was lined with rows and rows of new imported cars, waiting to clog our ever-congested motorways. To celebrate this folly, and also because we couldn’t find anywhere else to do so, we stood on the bridge over the dock inlet and ate our high-energy foods to charge us up for the rest of the Walk—a banana for Colin and chocolate for me!

Our way continued alongside a busy ‘Transport’ road, the main A180. After half a mile we were able to turn off past a sewage works and lots of factory chimneys belching out smoke. Delightful! (But at least no one pretended it was a way-marked footpath like the ‘Macmillan Way’ at Boston.) We concentrated our minds on the wild flowers which grew in profusion alongside all this muck. It is amazing how nature will take over. Eventually we reached the right-angled bend where I wanted to park this morning, but Colin had a major brainstorm so we ended up parking half a mile away in the village of Great Coates.
That ended Walk no.109, we shall pick up Walk no.110 next time at the right-angled bend in Pyewipe Industrial Estate where a footpath leads us back to the coast. We walked into Great Coates and had a cup of tea from our flask in the car. On our way back to collect our bikes we called in at the No.1 Refreshment Room in Cleethorpes Station for a snifter. Then we picked up our bikes and returned to our campsite along main roads because it was quicker, even though it was further.

Walk 108 -- Donna Nook to Cleethorpes

Ages: Colin was 63 years and 22 days. Rosemary was 60 years and 164 days.

Weather: We were caught in a hailstorm on the cycle ride! But for the Walk we had some cloud and some sunshine. The breeze was quite cool, but it remained dry.

Location: Donna Nook to Cleethorpes.

Distance: 9½ miles.

Total distance: 850½ miles.

Terrain: Some beach, but mostly grassy sea bank. Concrete walkway / cycle path for the last two miles. Flat.

Tide: Out.

Rivers: Nos.42, 43 & 44—The Seven Towns South Eau, the Seven Towns North Eau and the River Lud (Louth Canal).

Ferries: None.

Piers: None.

Kissing gates: None.

Pubs: The Crown & Anchor at Tetney Lock where we enjoyed Taylor Landlord and Bateman’s XXXB. We did visit Willy’s Pub & Brewery in Cleethorpes, but it was so noisy and crowded we left without having a drink.

‘English Heritage’ properties: None.

Ferris wheels: None.

Diversions: None.

How we got there and back: We were camping at Anderby. We drove, with bikes on the back of the car, to a car park in Cleethorpes which cost us £5! We didn’t want to waste time looking for somewhere cheaper, so we paid it. Then we cycled to the car park at Donna Nook where we padlocked our bikes to a fence. It was a long way, but we managed to chop two and a half miles off it by lifting our bikes over a couple of stiles. We stopped at Tetney Lock because the pub was there, and we sat outside with our beer. As we set off it started raining—then HAIL! We sheltered under a hedge and ate our pasties.

At the end, we had a cup of tea. We had a frustrating evening not finding a pub which did food on a bank holiday evening, and ended up with fish and chips which we ate in the car overlooking the sea. We returned to the campsite, and the next day we packed up and went home to Bognor.

We locked up our bikes in Donna Nook car park and went out to look again at the vast beach with targets and other odd structures on it. We found the sheer size of the beach there to be amazing, and we’d love to see it when it is covered with seals having their pups later in the year. We wondered if we would ever make the effort to come. We reminisced about the seals we had seen at Blakeney Spit the December before last when we were ‘round-Britain’ walking in Norfolk. We wondered how the animals coped with the RAF bombing them to hell most days of the week at Donna Nook — we were a put off by a notice asking us not to block a ‘crash exit’! We were glad it was a bank holiday and all was quiet.

We started today’s Walk on the dune path from the car park, but it very quickly deteriorated so we spilled out on to the beach. Apart from the lack of path, neither of us were wearing gaiters as it was too hot and the grass was wet after the hailstorm we had endured earlier in the day. The beach was flat and the sand firm—a much better option.
About a mile further on it would have been very easy to have missed the path along the seabank which we were supposed to take. Colin said, “Do we go there?” and I answered “No!” because it seemed to be going inland. The beach went straight on and looked the obvious way to go, but then I did a double-take. Referring to the map, I realised that if we did continue in a straight line we would be making the same mistake we made back at Saltfleet. The beach looked huge, and so did the saltmarsh. The map showed numerous creeks traversing it — so we turned to cross the Seven Towns South Eau and continued along a grassy seabank ’twixt marsh and fields where we couldn’t see the sea. But we did see a heron, pied wagtails, swallows, shelducks, oystercatchers and swifts so I suppose that made up for it. Further on we crossed the Seven Towns North Eau — another drain — we’d never have done that on the beach.

At the other end of the saltmarsh the public footpath really did turn inland to North Cotes and Tetney Lock before returning to the coast. It was a long way, and we were hoping that we would be able to continue along the seabank past a disused airfield even though it was private. When we got there we discovered that it seemed to be as public as the path we had just been walking on, so we were heartily relieved. On a gate were two notices. One warned us about barbed wire and metal stakes concealed by long grass (we didn’t come across any). The other told us that the land was jointly owned by the Humber and North Lincs Wildfowling Clubs and asked us to keep to the path at the top of the embankment. That suited us fine, and a neat well-kept path it was too.

The ‘disused’ airfield we were passing had planes on it! But they were only small ones, the complex had obviously been taken over by a private flying club. We were next to the vast beach again, unable to see the sea because it was so far away. But we could see ships on the horizon, waiting to go into the Humber Estuary. They looked as if they were on the sand!

We walked on to the Louth Canal—the canalised River Lud. It wasn’t clear from the map whether we would be able to cross the canal there, or would have to walk to Tetney Lock and back adding two miles to our hike. (Tetney Lock was where we had stopped at the pub earlier in the day when on our bikes, then got caught in a hailstorm!) We have never forgotten the ‘flood barriers’ back on Fobbing Marshes in Essex which looked like bridges on the map but turned out to be barred off with lots of spikes and razor wire causing us to have to walk scores more miles in order to cross deep dykes. However Lincs authorities are kinder, and there was a perfectly open bridge for us to cross without doing any harm to anyone. We were well pleased.

We carried on behind saltmarsh again. We were entering the Humber Estuary, and in the far distance we could see Spurn Head with its lighthouse. There was a spring in our steps because Spurn Head is in Yorkshire and at last we felt we were getting ‘North’! However, it didn’t last because walking across marshes is BORING — don’t we know it? — and we were getting tired. We ate our chocolate far too early, and the extra energy it gave us didn’t last until the end of the Walk.

We came to a T-junction and turned right past a row of caravans towards the sea. We walked alongside a large pool, and there were lots of people about because we were in a big car park and picnic area. At the end of the pool, a family were leaning over a bar looking at wildlife in the water. That was heartening to see — too many kids are growing up in a ‘virtual’ world of videos and computer games these days.
We took the path on to the beach, but had to wait ages for a couple to move out of the way — they were completely blocking the narrow path because they had stopped to make a mobile phone call to their teenage children whom they had obviously left at home. That’s another modern problem — people are encased in their own little worlds because of mobile phones, their minds are somewhere else and they walk into you or stand in the way like this couple were doing. Are we the only people who live in the real world?
A notice at the entrance to the beach warned us of a deep inshore creek which is covered at high tide. Colin said he didn’t remember anything about a creek when he holidayed in Cleethorpes as a child, and he was a bit puzzled. But we weren’t in Cleethorpes yet, we just thought we were! I don’t know what had caused this ‘senior moment’ — if we had looked at the map properly we would have seen that we were at least three miles from the centre of that seaside resort. But that was on the next map which I hadn’t bothered to get out. Once we hit ‘civilisation’, wishful thinking had said to our brains “It must be Cleethorpes!”

We started walking along the beach, but the sand was rather soft and sinky making our legs ache. Sure enough, there was the creek which was exposed due to the low tide. In fact it was the River Lud meandering its way across the sands towards the Humber, and it doesn’t go anywhere near Cleethorpes! There were a couple of boys with golf clubs walking alongside it, and they kept deliberately hitting the sand to make it fly up all over the place. When some came flying towards us Colin yelled a few oaths at them, which only antagonised them into doing it again. I was too tired for a ‘scene’, but it didn’t come to anything and we soon left them far behind.

With relief we climbed on to a concrete walkway after nearly a mile — our legs were really aching. Then we passed a signpost which bore the legend, “Cleethorpes 1½miles”. We were aghast! We had quite thought we were within a few yards of our car. That is when we wished we had not eaten our chocolate so far back on the Walk! We plodded on, past ‘Pleasure Island’ which didn’t have a Ferris wheel, and past the Greenwich Meridian which we were too tired to notice. A dozen steps past it I suddenly came to and said, “Hang on! That was the Greenwich Meridian!” Colin wasn’t interested, and I turned round to find that the signpost erected there was surrounded by teenage kids all being loud and bothersome — at least to my tired eyes they were. I wasn’t interested either as I knew photos would be out of the question with that lot there. “I’ll do it next time!” I said, and we tramped on to where we had grudgingly parted with £5 to park our car that morning. There were a lot of youths about, being as it was a bank holiday, and they were all very loud.

That ended Walk no.108, we shall pick up Walk no.109 next time on the prom near the very expensive car park south of Cleethorpes. We had a cup of tea before driving off. We had planned an evening meal in a ‘real ale’ pub to celebrate four days of successful walking, but on a bank holiday it was not to be. We found one of Colin’s pubs — loud music, full of young people and no food. We didn’t find his other pub at all. We picked up the bikes, only to find several cars full of youths oafing about at the lonely Donna Nook car park. Fortunately they hadn’t noticed our bikes until we started unlocking them, so they weren’t damaged. We ignored all their comments as we strapped them to the car, and drove off as quickly as we could. I don’t suppose they meant any harm, but they had to show off to the girls who were with them.

We stopped at two pubs on the way back which said they did food, but they didn’t. We ended up buying fish & chips in Mablethorpe. We sat in the car overlooking the sea, hungrily devouring them, which we both rather enjoyed. The tide was in by then, and the action of the waves made it seem quite exciting! Perhaps it was just relief and elation that we had successfully completed four more Walks.

When we returned to the campsite, joy of joys! Nearly everybody else had gone, and once more our tent was in isolation. The next day we packed up and went home ourselves, but we were back within a week camping further North. Before we started Walk no.109, we cycled an extra quarter of a mile to the Greenwich Meridian signpost to take the obligatory photographs. We were now walking in the Western Hemisphere again, but we shall still have to cross over the Meridian twice more.

Walk 107 -- Theddlethorpe St Helen to Donna Nook

Ages: Colin was 63 years and 21 days. Rosemary was 60 years and 163 days.

Weather: Hot and sunny, but clouding over. A nice breeze.

Location: Theddlethorpe St Helen to Donna Nook.

Distance: 9½ miles.

Total distance: 841 miles.

Terrain: Beach walking on fairly firm sand. Grassy paths in dunes and on sea banks.

Tide: Out.

Rivers: No.41, the Great Eau at Saltfleet Haven.

Ferries: None.

Piers: None.

Kissing gates: None.

Pubs: None.

‘English Heritage’ properties: None.

Ferris wheels: None.

Diversions: None.How we got there and back: We were camping at Anderby. We drove, with bikes on the back of the car, to a car park (free!) at Stonebridge Cottages, just round the corner from Donna Nook. (We were amazed to find a properly tarmacked car park with marked bays in such a remote spot.) Then we cycled to the car park near Theddlethorpe St Helen (sandy) where we padlocked our bikes to a proper bike rack.

At the end, we had a couple of cups of tea. Then we drove back to the campsite, collecting the bikes on the way.

Today was a long lonely Walk along vast beaches where the tide goes out so far it disappears over the horizon. There were a few people about because it was bank holiday weekend, but we hardly met anyone at all. We did come across a few nude sunbathers though. As usual they were mostly overweight middle-aged men with enormous egos—yes, the word I used was ego, perhaps to make up for something else being undersize!!

Soon after we left the car park at Theddlethorpe St Helen we passed a couple of families playing cricket on the enormous empty beach. But after that we were on our own, walking along a desert of firm flat sand. We stayed next to the saltmarsh on the shore side because we thought we might get disorientated if we wandered nearer the sea. After about a mile a track led off between the saltmarsh and the fields. We thought we’d better take it, even though it looked as if it was leading us away from the beach, because the map showed patches of saltmarsh spreading further and further out towards the sea. It was quite confusing despite having a map and a compass—I think it was because it was all so flat so there were no features we could use to get our bearings.

We met a couple, who were about our age, as we started down the track and stopped to chat. They told us that late November to December is the best time to go to Donna Nook because, despite the RAF bombing the place to hell, hundreds of grey seals haul themselves right up the beach to pup. (In later months I read about this in two different wildlife magazines, yet I had never heard of Donna Nook before.) No seals at this time of year, but we were also spared the bombing because it was a bank holiday weekend — we were able to walk all over the ranges unhindered. We were in for a treat when we carried on down the track — hundreds of wild flowers in all their late-Spring glory! The wild irises and marsh orchids were particularly lovely.

It was quite hot, so we sat in the shade of a bush to eat our lunch. Further on we overtook some teenagers playing on one of the many Second World War ‘pillboxes’ we have passed along the way. Although these haven’t any cliffs to fall down in this area, they have moved considerably in the sixty-plus years since they were built. At one point we came across one that was upside-down, and could only have got that way by the action of the sea at exceptionally high tides — or perhaps in those dreadful floods in 1953. Who knows? One of the lads followed us along the path, and when Colin tried to take a photo of me he was standing behind me making silly faces. We took no notice, then I told him I would turn him into a bit of marsh on my computer — which I have done quite successfully, look! He grinned, it was all ‘tongue-in-cheek’ the way teenagers are.

We crossed the River Great Eau at Saltfleet. There were a number of fishermen on the seaward side of the bridge—including a heron—and looking inland we saw some teenagers jumping off another bridge for a dare. It was there we found a signpost pointing us to ‘Paradise’! It put me in mind of ‘Paradise Road’ in Aldershot which I knew as a kid—the most depressed area of that Army town in Hampshire and not a place I would visit after dark! We crossed a drain on the road bridge and followed a track to a car park on the beach—somehow we missed a public footpath which led along the actual river bank.

We sat at a picnic table to eat a second lunch. While we were there a van arrived full of people, and amongst them was an objectionable child called ‘Merlin’ who caused us some amusement. They made a terrible fuss and noise getting their stuff out of the van and on to the beach (Merlin refused to co-operate all the time) and regarded us as if we were invisible even though they were flapping around us while we were trying to peacefully eat our sarnies. Suddenly one of the teenage girls turned and said with a snarl, “Wot yer staring at?” I gave her my ‘Teacher Look’ so that her courage failed her part way through the question and she said it half to herself really—silly bitch! That is the way modern teenagers pick quarrels with each other, but she realised very quickly that I wasn’t going to play her juvenile ‘game’. She walked off, and I hadn’t said a word! The rest of the family were quite friendly—with the exception of dear little Merlin—and Colin chatted to them about the kite buggy that they were trying to set up on the huge expanse of sand.

We thought we would be clever and take a short-cut across the beach. Mistake! It looked as if the shore curved round concavely, but that turned out to be an optical illusion. We found we were getting too far away from the real shore with more and more saltmarsh between us and dry land. Then we came to a river with a ‘dead’ car in it—this showed us that it was too deep to ford. We looked towards the shore and saw that this creek forked further inland making it look as if we would have to return all the way to Saltfleet before we could cross it. A two-stroke motorbike that was buzzing about on the beach, driving us mad with its noise, did just that. Colin looked seaward through his binoculars and said he thought the river ‘disappeared’ a bit further out. This proved to be the case, and we were able to walk round the end without even getting our feet wet! We thought we had better get back to the proper footpath along the shore before we got into any more trouble, but that didn’t turn out to be as easy as it looked. We squelched across the marsh, narrowly missing holes full of water and had to jump across several little ditches and streams on the way. It was very difficult walking because most of these hazards were hidden under the tussock grass—but we made it in the end without spraining any ankles or getting water into our boots.

With relief we continued along the track we should have been on from Saltfleet. At the next car park we went up on to the seabank and stopped to eat our chocolate. We were in a Nature reserve by then, but that wretched two-stroke which had followed us from Saltfleet was buzzing up and down past us. No peace! I suppose we should have been grateful it wasn’t a ‘bombing’ day for we were well within the vast ‘Danger Zone’ along this shore.

We had long since lost sight of the sea, and the enormous beach. To the right of us (sea side) bushes and even small trees were growing along the marshes where pools had been dug out to accommodate wildlife. We saw shelducks, a reed bunting in the bushes, and a family of swans with their cygnets on the water. To the left of us (land side) the fields were flat with no distinguishing features and we found it difficult to assess how near to Donna Nook we were. If it wasn’t for the map, we would have thought we were nowhere near the sea, for it looked as if we were in the middle of the countryside. The track became a path and began to get quite overgrown, obviously not walked very much. One blessing of this was that the two-stroke returned to Saltfleet and didn’t bother us again. Another was the profusion of wild flowers to which we were treated.

According to the map our path should have taken us straight out on to the beach at the end of the saltmarsh, but when we came to the end of the last pool there was an impenetrable hedge in front of us. The path had practically disappeared, but a vestige of it rounded the end of the pool and returned along the other side. It was the only way we could go, and we kept looking across to where we knew the beach was to see if there was a gap in the prickly bushes. Eventually we found a place where we could scrabble up a bit of a dune, haul ourselves through a hedge and emerge on the beach—at last!

It was even bigger than before, if that was possible. It put us in mind of those Alfred Hitchcock horror stories where people walk out into the wilderness and never see anything again except sand, sand, sand and sand! We still had another mile or so to walk in this wasteland before we reached Donna Nook, and we kept very close to the dunes so that we didn’t lose sight of ‘land’. We passed a watch-tower (nobody in it) and then came to a couple of buildings with some children playing in the soft sand. We rounded a corner—almost there—and strange sights met our eyes. There were targets on the beach in the distance, and far away on the horizon were odd ‘gazebo’-type things. We couldn’t see the sea at all. There were some very strange objects on the beach, including this rusty aerosol can with foam extruding from it. We didn’t touch anything. The map told us in big letters that this was a DANGER ZONE, notices warned us we were on MOD property, but luckily no one was shooting or bombing us because it was a bank holiday! We found our car quite safe in the car park. Phew!

That ended Walk no.107, we shall pick up Walk no.108 next time on the beach at Donna Nook. We downed a couple of cups of tea, drove back to Theddlethorpe St Helen to pick up the bikes, and then back to the campsite at Anderby. No peace there—loads of barbecue smoke all around our tent and children rushing around. But it was all very good natured, and everyone bedded down at a reasonable hour so we can’t complain just because we are a pair of crusty old wrinklies who were tired after a hike. I expect our children were just as noisy when we used to take them camping when they were little. I know they used to play games like ‘Duffs on the Hill’ and dismantle dry-stone walls—it’s probably just as well that I didn’t know half of what else they got up to!
UPDATE:
It was four and a half years before we found the time to return to Donna Nook in order to see the seals. In November 2009 we towed our newly acquired caravan across the country for a couple of days in the area, and spent a brilliantly sunny day on the beach at Donna Nook. The crowds are managed by volunteers from the local Wildlife Trust, and they try not to advertise it because hundreds of people turn up every day during the season as it is. If more people came it would get out of hand.The beach is huge, and very remote. It is used as an RAF bombing range, but as soon as the seals start to arrive in the middle of October, they take their bombs elsewhere until the seals have left. Even so, we had to put up with the noise of helicopters and low-flying jets all through the day we were there. A double fence has been erected for about half a mile along the bottom of the dunes, (it had to be double because people have been stupid enough to try and stroke the seals -- or even worse, encourage their children to stroke them!) and we were requested not to go on the actual beach while the seals were there. Apart from disturbing them, it would be highly dangerous. Dogs are completely banned because of the danger of spreading the disease distemper.The week we were there the Wildlife Trust had counted in excess of thirteen hundred seals on that beach!! The following week they expected there to be over two thousand. By the New Year they will all be gone....until next year.The females haul themselves out on to the beach to have their pups. They feed the single pup for three weeks (twins rarely survive), during which time it grows very fat and the Mum grows very thin! When she's had enough, she comes into season, mates and returns to the sea pregnant once again. (What a life!)The pup takes a few days to realise it has been abandoned, then it enters the sea for the first time and tries to catch some fish for itself. If it succeeds it lives, if it doesn't it dies. It's parents have nothing more to do with it.The males come ashore to fight with each other over the choicest females. The second to last picture shows a female fending off the attentions of two males whilst trying to protect her pup. Pups sometimes get suffocated in the scrum. Fighting males can often injure each other quite badly.I have included some pictures of the spectacle -- some of life in the raw and some to make you go "Aaahh!"
It is a wildlife spectacle like no other, it is in England and it is FREE!