With a long day in front of me, further stormy weather forecast and a route I was not too sure about, particularly the section around Pagham Harbour, I set off at a brisk pace, keen to start making inroads to the miles. Retracing my steps of yesterday, I headed back down to the town of Littlehampton, cutting over just beside the Lifeboat Station to access a small footbridge just up the river from it. For a number of years the lifeboats in Littlehampton were named Blue Peter 1, paid for andprovided by the viewers of the programme. Over the footbridge I made my way down the riverbank, initially on an overgrown path, to emerge on to the beach at the river mouth. The walking on the beach was difficult at first on a layer of peebles, but as I progressed and as the tide retreated, I was able to find firm sand by the water's edge.
- Walking along the beach various sea defences can be seen including the ubiquitous wooden groynes at Atherington and the lozenge-shaped breakwaters at Elmer. With the tide retreating it was interesting to see the plethora of molluscs and seaweed that attach to the groynes when it is under water. The weather at this point was constantly changing with clouds forming and dissipating with great regularity. For most of the morning the rain came and went and a number of times I had to stop and take out the wterproofs. At times there was blue sky, yet at others it was dark and forboding with roiling clouds filling the heavens.
Keeping to the beach for a couple of miles, I eventually had to move inland to begin my journey round Pagham Harbour. The area is a natural harbour or inlet that consists of areas of salt marsh, mudflats and numerous lagoons. There is an extensive shingle spit across the mouth of the delta, formed by the different ridges of pebbles, deposited over time by the relentless tides. At the back of the spit lies the Pagham Harbour Local Nature Reserve, an important wetland for wildlife with black-tailed Godwits and Little White Egrets in residence. At one time an important harbour for the local area, it has lang-syne silted up and it is many years since any ship of size sailed its inner waters on a high tide. Covering some 1500 acres, the reserve has various habitats including salt marsh and mudflats, farmland, copses, lagoons, reed beds and shingle beaches.
The peace continued when I was back on the trail on a very enjoyable walk on the seawall round the extensive lands of the harbour. With wildflowers everywhere you looked, birds, deer, brown hares, herons, damsel, dragon and butterflies, you just did not know where to put your attention because wherever you looked, it meant you missed something elsewhere. The weather brightened in the mid-afternoon and I was now walking in warm sunshine. Larks singing above me, bees buzzing among the wild flowers, water voles 'plopping' in to the water, hidden by the overgrown verges, it was a lovely interlude in beautiful sourroundings.
I considered setting up in the Church Norton graveyard but thought that would be disrespectful. In the end, I walked all the way in to Selsey and ended the day sitting on a bench, mobile phone in hand, trying to find accommodation for the night as the sun sunk slowly in the western sky. Eventually, I found an airbnb location at the top end of the town that would take me at short notice and made my way through the streets to the house. After eighteen miles I was eager for the day to end and after a quick trip out for a fish supper, which I ate sitting on a public bench in the town, I finally went back to my accommodation and bed.