Curse these unexpected inland detours! First we saw this sign:
“Pah!” I thought, “Those signs are put up at the drop of a hat more than at the fall of a cliff!” . But then we saw a “Footpath Closed” sign, and when we tried to work out why the footpath might be closed, we noticed this (can you see the path?):
And then, just to ram it home, we came across another sign which had some photos on it:
I should add that “The Chilling Coast” was not a macabre title for literary effect. We were actually in a place called Chilling.
So for the sake of avoiding 500 metres, we detoured inland by just over a mile.
At last, after an unwelcome trudge, we got back to the coast again – hooray! But then, almost immediately, we saw this:
We looked at this sign in utter dismay. We had already walked some 13 miles and time was getting on. We were hoping to catch the ferry from Warsash to Hamble-le-Rice, but the last ferry was at 4pm. We were cutting it fine as it was. Another inland detour would mean we would certainly miss it. We stood and looked at the path; or at least we tried to look at it, because there was no path there to be looked at. This was, I supposed, a product of the December 2013 and January 2014 storms which had flooded so many areas and caused havoc up and down the south coast of the country.
As I looked ahead, however, it seemed to me as if the narrow stretch of beach below could be followed. Yes! It could!
“Come on!” I said to the others. “Let’s go for it! We don’t have to go inland again and we get the better views if we stick to the coast”.
Well, kind of…
Points on this part of the walk (copy and paste the co-ordinates into Google Earth):
- Start of Inland Detour: N 50° 49.920 W 001° 16.902
- End of Inland Detour and Second Footpath Closed Sign: N 50° 50.015 W 001° 17.280
Walk #66 Statistics (of which this post forms the thirteenth part):
- Date of Walk: 19 February 2014
- Walk #66 total distance covered: 15.29 miles
- Coast of Britain Walk Total Distance Covered: 554.05 miles
- CLICK HERE FOR LINK TO INTERACTIVE MAP!!!
The Coastal Path 
I wouldn’t have let a little bit of erosion stop me either – way to go!
(no guts, no glory 🙂 )
This is turning out to be quite a dangerous adventure – much of the coastline you have been walking seems to be ‘out of order’ for one reason or another, with suitably stern prohibiting notices… I’d prefer not to live in a place called Chilling, though there are worse names, I know… RH
I’m so much more of a chicken than that! Warning signs are for the birds! 🙂