I woke up to the sound of rain hitting the tent, not a bad thing if you can just lie there in the warmth of your sleeping bag. It was just after 7.30 so it was starting to get light and an unwritten rule about wild camping, be up and away before anyone sees you. I could hear a few dog walkers up the lane so decided to shake a leg... well I'm not sure about the legs but I performed like a bloke with no arms packing up... everything was awkward, nothing would fit into my pack, the tent was soaked and the wind made it really hard to get it in the bag, I ripped a big hole in my finger on something and it wouldn't stop bleeding over everything, a great start to the day... đ„ș
That said, when I got going I had a real spring in my step, a combination of all of that rest time and releasing a bucket full of juice out of that blister.... đ«Ł A good walk along the cliff top for a hour or so before I could get no further due to the cliff erosion so I had to box inland and walk on the road for about 8 miles.
Stopped in Mappleton in a lovely little cafe for a much needed bowl of soup and a sausage butty and then back onto the beach. It was only about 3 miles along the beach to Hornsea but it was crazy to see the cliff eroding and falling to the beach as I walked past, I didn't see any big slides but constantly lumps of mud would slide and fall down the cliff face. Apparently, often exposing unexploding bombs as they fall from the exposed cliff face.
I was having my daily catch up with my mum on FaceTime but had to cut her off as there were 2 figures coming towards me, both wearing large rucksacks. We stopped to chat and I was amazed to hear that Daniel and Charlotte were also walking the coast, obviously the other way round though. Dan, who was an former soldier, has been at it for the past 2 years and he had met Charlotte while walking and she joined him. They were doing double the distance I plan to walk as they are also walking every island around our coast, something in the region of 16,000 miles and they were doing a great job raising money for SAFFA. Clearly I could offer no advice as a complete novice coast walker and the experience these guys have already had would have taken a week to talk about. It's a shame we hadn't met in the town where we could have chatted for a few hours but we were all on a mission to find a place to sleep as the time was getting on. We wished each other well and said our goodbyes and all three of us wandered off into the unknown. I was envious of the exuberance of youth they clearly had on their side but on the flip side, I was grateful that I was walking away on my own, to not have the responsibility of looking after someone else and while I did have my teddy to talk to on those dark lonely nights, she doesn't bloody talk back... đđŹ
