Saturday 8th March 2025

Naturally, bright and early we hotfooted it to our usual Saturday morning activity and today’s choice was the Humber Bridge parkrun. For anyone planning to do this one, leave yourself plenty of time after parking up as it’s a fair old walk to the start and down a particularly steep set of steps to boot. And remember those lovely steps are waiting for you to climb up on your return, so pace yourself! But what a fabulous route – three trail laps around pretty woodland – this Country Park was originally a quarry.

Before setting off on today’s Coastal Path walk we sensibly checked in to a Greene King pub for breakfast – turned out to be pretty disastrous. We were pointed to a table without being given any instructions, so we fiddled around trying unsuccessfully to download the app. Our table was right next to an ever growing table of cheery bikers – they were lovely but incredibly noisy and we were just drowned out! No-one came to serve us so we moved to a different table and then just decided to help ourselves to the buffet. We had to search around for plates – the food was good but cold by the time we’d waited for the bread to toast! And there were no mugs so NO tea! Oh well, we had some sustenance which is more than we accomplish sometimes!

We parked up again at the Hessle Foreshaw car park (it’s free) as today we were walking the other side of the estuary. We caught a bus to Barton on Humber and a train from there to New Holland. We had a very smooth connection (timing is everything) and enjoyed our little countryside ride.

Disembarking in New Holland, we found ourselves walking amongst impressive seaport industrial sites -it is a tidal dock, almost entirely used for the import of timber. The path eventually led us on to the more peaceful environment of embankment wall where we had spectacular views to our right of the Humber Estuary and to our left a nature reserve gleaming in the sunshine. We could see the Humber Bridge in the distance and as we walked the views just got more and more magnificent.

The weather was glorious again today – blue skies and sunshine. I was walking in my t-shirt most of the way, Steve clung on to his layers and thick jacket! And the spring flowers and blossom make this time of year even more joyous – it’s a good to be alive day!

Just before the bridge we dived into the Humber Hideaway cafe where we indulged in lashings of tea and raspberry and coconut slices – yum! From there it was a short walk to the bridge – we eventually found the access route to get on it, one pedestrian side was closed. It was a stunning walk over with views of the Humber river and the surrounding area stretching for miles. Then back to Hessle to find the car.

So, 7 miles clocked up in coastal walking + 3 miles of parkrun – think we got our steps in today.

Friday 7th March 2025

Just to fill the gap in from yesterday – day off the coastal path – we went to Hull New Theatre instead to see ‘The Book of Mormon.’ If you haven’t seen it – go, it’s hilarious!