Day 186: Shoeburyness to Hullbridge

Best bits: exposure on BBC Breakfast and resulting donations and followers

Worst bits: the nettles, dangerous road walking

Distance: 21.6 miles

It was great excitement this morning as my phone started pinging with messages. People were alerting me to the fact that they had seen me and Angela on BBC Breakfast. Not long after this my phone started to go crazy with new followers on Instagram and most importantly, more donations.

However, the walking still needed to be done. It was another long drive from one Asda in Shoeburyness to another in South Woodham Ferry this morning and then back again to start the walk.

This was to be Zoe‘s last full day with me today. I’m going to miss her. She’s walked quite a lot of miles with me this week. We worked out it’s about 70 in total. Unfortunately, she hasn’t been blessed with the best scenery on route so far. Yesterday evening she ventured to take Priscilla for a spin as Asda was closed in the car park was virtually empty.

The rain was pattering down on Priscilla’s roof when we woke this morning. That was a bit of a shocker it’s the first rain we’ve had in awhile. The weather forecast was 25% chance of rain all morning.

Once we started walking the first available place to stop for a cup of tea was at 3 km so we made our way to Gossip café. It was full of locals and we gave out lots of cards and hearts. I even got my favourite scone, cherry. After using the facilities and taking photos with Martine, Zoe and I left. It was about a kilometre later I suddenly realised that we hadn’t paid so we had to leg it back to the shop to pay our way. By the time we got back to the realisation point we’d done a further 2 km extra.

It was VE day today and many streets that we passed were obviously having street parties of some nature as they were lined with bunting and some tables and chairs outside. We passed a postbox that had yarn bombing on top of it.

A sign post for public footpath was pointing us to the left. However, it was rather overgrown with nettles to get to the stile over the fence. The stile had seen better days and was crumbling and wobbling. I sent Zoe on ahead as the ‘nettle detector’. After walking for a few minutes, I checked the map and discovered that we were actually on the wrong footpath. Back to retrace our steps again. Eventually, we managed to find the correct path. The terrain here is very flat and the views all look the same. The only thing that’s different are the cloud formations.

There was a piece of black cable at the roadside and Zoe was walking behind me and I shouted a snake. She jumped a mile which highly entertained me.

Our lunch stop today was a recommendation by two locals that we met who were out walking their dogs. One of the little dogs came bounding across the crops to greet us. It reminded me of Poppy and Tess bouncing up and down like Tigger. The pub was called Anne Boleyn and I was tempted by the fish finger wrap and sweet potato fries. Just what I needed. After lunch Zoe made her way to the train station whilst I detoured back to the path via Rochford which had some beautiful buildings.

Later as I was walking along a footpath, or what I thought was a footpath, beside a field. A huge dog came charging up to me barking loudly. Fortunately I was on the other side of a fence from it. Then someone shouted out to me. Where did I think I was going? This was her private property? I replied saying I was just trying to get to the road which I could actually see from where I was standing, but no, she made me turn around and go all the way back down her field to walk on the opposite side of a hedge. I obviously look like a right rogue. It’s amazing how different people are.

Sometimes as a walker, it’s very tricky to find which way you are meant to be going. It’s really no wonder we get it wrong sometimes as sign posting is often very scant at best, sometimes ambiguous, crumbling, or completely non-existent.

The official King Charles the third England Coast path meanders around the wetland following the course of the creeks. This is typically unattractive scenery and is more of the same especially when the tide is out and all you can see are channels of mud. So I decided to take an alternative route which meant some road walking but also walking across the fields. The fields are a more attractive option than the mudflats. However, there’s always the danger of more nettles.

There was the sound of clippety clop, clippety clop behind me and then a pony and trap came past me. This reminded me of Johnny, Angela’s Dad who had a horse and trap however he would always be going very slowly.

After a little more road walking on a busy road, there was a bus stop with a shelter and seat which I used to take a short break. I gulped down a snicker and a bottle of orange juice. It was also an opportunity to check my emails and I was delighted that there were so many more donations. I also did some running repairs on my foot where I had felt something rubbing.

I calculated that I still had her about another 10 km or 6 miles to go until I would rendezvous with Zoe at Hullbridge.

The wind had strengthened and I could hardly hear my audiobook through my ear buds. However, the sun was trying to get out and interestingly one side of the road seem to have blue skies while the other side had grey menacing clouds.

Walking along this road, is pretty dangerous. There is absolutely nowhere to jump out of the way of the traffic which is coming along at stupid speeds. Motorbikes come past like they are in a race. Then OMG now there’s a car and a caravan coming past me. A combination of boy races, 4×4 drivers who have no idea how huge their car is and how far their wing mirrors stick out. It’s just absolutely relentless.

The road seemed to go on forever and I was feeling fatigued and so I resorted to my emergency music of the sound track to Everyone’s talking about Jamie to keep me going.

At last I could see the slipway for the ferry and more importantly the pub, the Anchor at Hullbridge, where Zoe was waiting for me with a half a Guinness. I slumped down into the chair with relief and took a sip. Zoe had been talking to Lyn who had seen me on TV that morning.