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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 2886 |
28th April 2017 Hiking - Walking: Pagham Harbour Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: Mainly cloudy Max Speed: Distance Covered: Friday 28th April – Walks **** Pagham Harbour – mainly cloudy Nice quiet night on the South Downs Path at Bignor, milder this morning - a balmy 6 degrees but sadly no sunshine. After breakfast, we packed up and headed off down the steep, narrow road but not before seeing our four-deer including an impressive stag run across the wheat field. The narrow high banked lanes continued until we reached the A 286 leading to Chichester. The traffic got busy at this point as we by-passed the town and turned off to Pagham then left towards Selsey a dead-end road and an area we had not been to before. Our first set back was a tractor cutting the verges with no traffic management or sign, an accident just waiting to happen which caused a tailback. We managed to overtake the tractor then came across a sign to the RSPB sign to Pagham Harbour nature reserve and quickly turned in. The main carpark was full but we found a space in the overflow park with a sign saying a donation of £1 for half a day or £2 all day to park was very reasonable:) I went to the visitor centre to get a map and we decided to have a quick explore turning left to do some of the Discovery trail. It was a short distance through the reeds until the whole of the lovely Pagham Harbour opened up before us with the tide low but coming in, it reminded us a lot of Suffolk’s many marshy areas. There were a few waders about with black headed gulls, egrets and herons. We took a bit of a wrong turn heading out to a dead-end in the marsh but were soon back on track on the path come cycle track to Sidlesham Quay, another well healed sort of place with a 5-star pub called the Crab and Lobster, a little out of our price range I think! This was the site of a large tide mill like the one at Woodbridge but it has all gone now only a small quay which is inaccessible to boats as the harbour has silted up! Returning to the van Mag paid our car park money, then as we were leaving we noticed the traffic to Selsey was now slow moving. We didn’t know what was causing the hold-up, an accident or road works perhaps but we were getting nowhere fast, we hate driving in this country! We just couldn’t believe the volume of traffic including loads of big lorries on what looked such a quiet dead end area on the map! After ages of crawling along at snail’s pace salvation arrived with the left hand turning to Church Norton yet another dead end, but a good dead end with a little carpark by the 13th Century chapel of St. Wilfreds with the biggest grave yard we have seen and walks down to the harbour. Our plan was to pack a picnic and eat it near the water, so while Mag made another great sandwich I checked out the chapel. By the time, I returned to the van it was raining a bit so we had lunch in the van. We dozed and read while watching sheep with lambs on the castle mound - all that’s left of a Norman castle! Then at three with the weather better we went for walk number two, checking out the chapel first then down to the harbour which looked great with the tide now fully in. It was a short walk to the long shingle spit beach, turning towards Bognor there was a nice path to start but then a large area was roped off for nesting birds like at Landguard so we had to walk on the shingle which was hard going but lovely non-the less. We passed two fishermen and nearing the end of the shingle spit with the water rushing out there were loads of sleeping waders waiting for the mud to reappear and were not bothered by us in the slightest! Turning we walked back to where we started on the beach but carried on as there was a footpath inland taking us back to the van. We spoke to a nice posh local lady with a black Labrador puppy who said that the traffic problem was caused by the building of an Asda store that nobody wanted as it would put the local shops out of business! We crossed farmland with some lovely cottages but sadly a huge amount of rusty farm machinery just dumped and lots of fly tipping too, a sad state of affairs:( Back at the van after two hours and another three miles covered we had a well-deserved cuppa deciding to stay here the night. Then after tea of sausage omelette surprise we went for our third walk of the day, back down to the harbour but turning left this time heading away from the coast. With the water, low and the mud out the gulls and waders including several curlews were making the most of it. Back at the van we had apple and custard, we know how to live, and have our fingers crossed that the local oafs don’t use this carpark to party as there are some old portable BBQ’s dumped in the grass! Photo Gallery Here |
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