Isle of Wight Coastal Path. Day 4.

After the ridiculous decadence of tea, biscuits, croissants, fresh coffee and another shower, we hit the road, wonderfully late.

It was a windy start with rain constantly being beaten back by the sun. Good old sun.

Today was a big tarmac day, cycle paths, country lanes, bridleways and little tucked-away side streets behind houses. Our feet were liable to take a battering, or they would if I didn’t have incredible boots on.

Stop me if I’ve told you this before, but I read a book called ‘Edgelands’ by Michael Symmons Roberts and Paul Farley a few years back, and ever since it has made all those bits straddling countryside and urban-side really enjoyable. Graffiti, brambles, 60’s wire fencing, cow parsley, balsam, driveways, blossom. You know, the blending and mereging of the two.

There has also been some top notch architecture on this walk, too. I remember my parents having a photo album of ‘old doors’ (they undoubtedly still have it) and I could never comprehend why. Now I find myself taking pictures of old doors.

Before too long we arrived 7 miles further up the road in East Cowes. By now Eric was flagging and ready to have a sausage. We found a cafe which smelt better than anything, and certainly better than we did. Here we ate fabulous soup and Eric got her sausage sustenance.

Now we must cross the River Medina on Cowes floating bridge, which is a vehicular chain ferry. For the princely sum of 150 pence you can cross the 125 metre body of water, saving yourself a 10 mile round trip through Newport.

Before I’d had quite enough time to enjoy a sit down we were over the other side and off the ferry. A quick stumble through Cowes, which, on another day would be a slow amble taking in all the charity shops on offer. Snakes and I vowed to come back and marched on to Egypt point and Gurnard a ways up the esplanade.

Along the way Eric demanded to be on the beach proper and having been afforded the opportunity, she quickly became terrified of being separated from us (still on the higher esplanade) and ran at pace, back to us. Snakes then had to escort her back down to the beachfront and walk alongside her for a time, just so she could get her fill.

After a small dalliance with a poodle-boy named ‘Hero’ we left the tarmac and rejoined a footpath with pleasure and vigor. Until around 20m in, when we became sick of the 2ft mud puddles, 70% reduced pace and constant fear of falling on our face. We’d ignored a path closure sign to get here and hoped we would not be met with an impassable landslide (very possible) and that the mud would end soon (less possible).

As soon as possible we retreated back down to the beach where the sand was hard and Eric found some forgotten energy to run around after some driftwood.

For the second time we momentarily lost ourselves in a holiday park. Something about caravan suburbia sends my mind and natural sense of navigation into a tailspin. Like I’m never supposed to leave. Finally, once we were spat out into a field, a particularly inquisitive horse began to  chase Eric in a canter. Eric was impressively faster than it, given the week she’d had, and managed to escape its 50 tone hooves before it got bored and resumed the eating of grass. It was particularly terrifying for her fearful overbearing parents who could do little but trott behind at a pace much slower than both of them. 3 long, boggy fields later and we arrived on a road, which soon lead us to the Sportsman’s rest pub in Porchfield.

The time was 4pm, the plan was to hydrate here and leave by 5pm then be at the next pub 3.5 miles down the road before 6pm when the heaven’s were due to open, we’d eat there then find a place to camp. I noticed a church opposite our final destination on the map and would see if this would do for the night, only if my ploy to ask the locals in that second pub about a barn or undercover area or patch of available land for us to pitch our tent didn’t work. *I really want to camp in a church though*

Meanwhile, in the Sportmans Rest, I tested this plan out on the landlady of our current pub and before long she was calling a friend with a farm to see if we could camp there,  but the land was too wet. She then offered to let us camp in her garden, and then for no obvious reason at all, escalated this to us staying upstairs in her spare room.

Cut to 20 minutes later, we’d finished our pints and were upstairs soaking our muddy legs in her shower. 

Nikki, the new owner of the newly reopened Sportsmans Rest, cleared out her upstairs floor for us for the night and said she would stay at her boyfriends over the road. We had a decadent 3 course meal to show our thanks, and after a swift port, retired to our new flat upstairs. The pub closed relatively early and, in theory, we had the run of the place. How trusting of our new pal Nikki just to leave two mud-stricken wayfaring strangers in her house above her pub for the night.

15 miles on the day.