29-05-2020, 04:02 PM
1738
Re: Bob's Bits.
Spurn Head is a 3 mile long finger of land that juts out into the Humber Estuary and the focus of today's ramble. It's about an hour and a half drive for me, because once you pass Hull the roads get windier and narrower with quaint little villages that post 30mph signs with enthusiastic constables waiting to catch the unwary driver out. On my return journey I witnessed two drivers who hadn't paid attention to their speed, or the limits, costly mistake.....
I arrived at my destination in Kilnsea to find the toilets closed and a pay and display machine. If the toilets had been open I might have bought a ticket....I drove round the corner to find that just up the road they had built a Spurn Head Discovery Centre, closed now of course thanks to Covid, but at the least the fiver it cost me for an all day ticket would be going to a good cause...The nature reserve.....
In a car park that would easily hold fifty cars, there was just five including mine. As I started my walk I discovered about fifty cars littering the verges all the way to the gate. To avoid the fiver I guessed. I had driven all this way for the solitude, but it was heaving with folk.....
Undaunted I pressed on; It's a good three miles from here to the lighthouse that you could just see in the distance. Rough terrain, on a hot day, I didn't think many would be making the journey, and I was right. The first obstacle you come to is the half a mile of soft sand because a previous storm had washed the road away cutting off the head from the mainland.
If you follow that beach and walk along the seashore it will take you all the way to Hornsea, Bridlington, Filey and Scarborough. Perhaps when the busses are running properly again it will be something to be considered. Today though I walked in the opposite direction, for the three mile hike to the lighthouse and coastguard station. This is what's left of the road that used to connect Spurn Point to the rest of the mainland, and now Spurn is only accessible at low tide....
If you can survive the soft sand, cement blocks, and rising tide, you eventually arrive at the old road, which is still intact, and from here on it's all good walking. Fortunately most visitors don't get this far so here is the solitude I've been looking for. This little shed is for the unlucky people who didn't plan their walk while taking the rising tide into consideration. They can sit it out in here and wait until the water recedes......Although in winter I don't think it ever does....
Storms are quite frequent here and every year a little bit more of Spurn gets reclaimed by the sea. I can see a time in the not too distant future when it will become an Island. Just a couple decades ago the small community at the point was serviced by a railway, which like everything else around here, finally ends up in the sea.....This is what's left, it goes nowhere now.....
I finally made it to the Lighthouse and am looking for a comfortable spot to eat. The egg and bacon sandwich I purchased from the Nisa on the way wasn't up to much but it's all I've got. I should have shopped at the co-op in Thorngumbald on the way, perhaps next time. What a funny name for village..
This is the coastguard station on the point, there is also a lifeboat stationed here, at high tide there are massive ships and ferries sail past here for Hull or Grimsby and this station keeps them all from bumping into each other. There is also a pilot that navigates them in and out of the Humber....That makes up the little community here, although apart from the lifeboat crew I think the pilots and coastguards travel from somewhere else by river taxi or even chopper...
And finally, this is the jetty that serves the community and it's where the lifeboat is accessed; You can just see the lifeboat anchored on the left waiting for some distressed sailors....I wonder if the crew have any tasty sandwiches they could spare, this bacon is horrible.....