Day 2: Cowes to Yarmouth

 

First of all: Happy Birthday, Alex! Lots of love from both of us!!

Today was a whopping 16 miles - twice the distance we walked yesterday. It was sunny when we left the bed and breakfast but it very quickly poured down. 

 

Dad rethought his shoe strategy and changed back into his boots and put waterproof trousers on. 

 

 

The street at the bottom of the hill was flooded but we didn't get our feet wet, thankfully. 

 

The Coastal Path finally began to properly follow the Coast today and we had some lovely views and many muddy, covered pathways along fields and hedges. 

 

 

And we finally found some cows!

 

 

We passed a lot of farming country and muddy tractor paths. Thankfully the footpath was alongside this so we didn't have to navigate the sticky mud too much. 

 

 

We navigated around the Danger Zone, which is a military training area. We saw and heard Chinook helicopters flying round. Much of this section of the path was along roadways and we were going inland at this point to navigate around the estuary. We then discovered our own danger zone with a herd of fluffy Belted Galloway who were very interested in us. Mostly just snorting at us, of course. 

 

 

We stopped for lunch in Shafleet at the New Inn where I discovered, to my horror, that my water bottle top had popped off and filled the bottom section of my rucksack with water. Everything was saved, thankfully, and I won't be using that water bottle again any time soon. 

We then carried on the trail round the Newtown National Nature Reserve and Estuary over little bridges and muddy paths towards the opening of the bay. 

 

 

 

We passed a chap working on a section of land, felling trees and moving them here and there, so we had to take some pictures for Pete:

 

 

 

We then made our way over a few more bridges until the Nature Reserve brought us back to the coast. 

 

 

 

We had to stop to have a snack and change socks. We thought this was a good place to do that: 

And after 16 miles, we finally made it to Yarmouth. 

 

We decided we were pretty glad we didn't have to go much farther. Our feet and legs are tired (I have a blister already...) and we can't quite believe we're going to do this again tomorrow... but I'm sure a good meal downstairs - we're staying at the local pub, the Bugle Coaching Inn - and a good night's sleep will get us ready for another day tomorrow! To quote Dad: "If I don't move my feet, or my legs... or my body... I feel pretty good!" 

Only 13.5 miles to Brighstone tomorrow!

Thanks for following us. We're so glad to hear from you on our journey!