TADS #71:Chichester to Bognor Regis (or Pagham Harbour).

71!* The numbers are starting to look silly now. But I'm not getting bored of TADS and, in fact, last Saturday's stroll from Chichester to Bognor Regis via Pagham Harbour was as much fun as any walk. A lot more than some of them. When I looked at Adam's map the next day it looked like we'd actually walked almost exactly the route I'd planned as well. Wonders will never cease. 

As so often, I''d made a nice early start. Train from Honor Oak Park to West Croydon (a little bit spruced up compared to recent visits I noticed), and walked to East Croydon where I bought a new Network Card and almost immediately lost it. I left it at the counter (I was sure I'd put it in my pocket, I guess that's what we can class as a 'senior moment') but thankfully the friendly staff had hung on to it.

Wouldn't have been good if they hadn't. I met Pam on the platform and we hopped on the Sussex snaker down through Gatwick Airport, past the lovely views of Arundel, and in to Chichester where we somehow managed to avoid popping in to Saigon Boozebox. Shep and I visited Vietnam (Saigon even) back in 2008 and either one of us, on that holiday, could well have earned the nickname Saigon Boozebox.

There was a Saigon Munchbox too but let's not go there. Shep and Adam were waiting for Pam and I in the Dolphin & Anchor (a Spoons I'd chosen as I'd not been able to identify any suitable greasy spoons, even though being there it became apparent Chichester was not short of them) and it wasn't long before Roxanne and Clive joined us too. Roxanne and Clive had muffins, Pam and I had veggie breakfasts, and Shep, famed now for his solitary sausage in Guildford, managed five and half veggie sausages.

Impressive! With that it was time to start the walk proper. I've written about Chichester (and Bognor Regis) before in previous blogs (see hyperlinks attached) so I won't go into much spiel here but it was lovely to see Chichester's large and splendid cathedral again (even if nobody wanted to go and have a look at the Arundel Tomb inside) and to stop and consider the Chichester Cross.

Built between 1477 & 1503, it served as both a meeting place and a covered market and still looks very impressive now, over five hundred years later. We headed back past the train station, and Saigon Boozebox, and near The Richmond pub turned in to the Chichester Canal Basin and picked up the Chichester Canal itself. An only partly navigable ship canal that flows for just 3.8 miles into the Chichester Channel.

There's some nice butterfly sculptures there and moored in the basin were the four boats that travel up and down the canal:- Richmond, Frisky, Egremont, and Kingfisher. Later on one of them would pass us and we'd wave at the people on board. Of course we'd wave. We're not barbarians.

The canal, of course, was a flat and easy section and it was a flat walk even if it was to have a few minor challenges en route. Shep and I myself strode out at the front. Felt like ages since I'd seen him so it was nice to catch up but by the time we came off the canal at Poyntz Bridge I'd dropped to the back with Pam and it was just the two of us who enjoyed, and appreciated, the view back to the cathedral that no less an artist than JMW Turner had painted in 1828. The painting is impressive and so is the view.

 

Leaving the canal, we passed through the small village of Hunston (Wikipedia claims a population of 1,257 but not sure how they keep that up to date what with the fact that people keep dying and being born) and made our way down Church Lane to the church of St Leodegar which is named for a martyred Burgundian bishop and was home to several tombs with porcine decoration. One can only assume it relates to pig farmers and their families from the area.

We took a ziggety-zaggety path (Pam providing a soundtrack of Captain Beefheart's excellent Zig Zag Wanderer) through a few fields, some kind of dingly dell, and, of course - this is TADS, a golf course. We saw an abandoned boat and we nearly went into a field of cows before deciding better of it and chatting to a local about directions before continuing on the route that I had planned, despite the fact that at times the signs suggested we were entering private property.

The signs were vague. They specified no through road for vehicles but walkers didn't warrant a mention. I feared a telling off from a toff or one of their lackeys but, fortunately, that never happened and the most challenging obstacle came negotiating a field full of barley. We all made it thought but alas Pam's rather lovely green cardigan was lost for ever. I like to think some shall child in the wilds of West Sussex found it and now wears it as part of their Sunday best.

After a fashion, we emerged at the edge of the mostly silted up Pagham Harbour and the tiny hamlet of Little Welbourne and its Salt House. We had already walked on multiple terrains and there were a few more left for us to try yet. Which I liked and I think the others did too. Changes of scenery on walks tends to make them more interesting.

Even if at one point we seemed to be heading straight for an impassable bush! The 1,550 acre (629 hectare) Pagham Harbour is a Site of Special Scientific Interest and all of that and the RSPB are among its many owners. It is said you can see such birds as wood sandpipers, avocets, pied wagtails, shelducks, little ringed plovers, black tailed godwits, and red necked phalaropes here on the few remaining parts of the Sussex coast yet to fall prey to the developers but pretty much all we saw were cuttlefish bones and the skeletons of crabs - and lots of them too.

 

 

As we passed between the mostly dried up Pagham Harbour and the much deeper, and more waterfowl friendly, Pagham Lagoon on what was almost a boardwalk we emerged to sea views, sea cabbages, and the outskirts of Pagham itself. What people were most excited about was, after nearly three and a half hours without a stop, was the prospect of a pub.

But the pub turned out not to be a pub. Pagham Beach Cafe was a cafe with pub style tables out front that comes up as a bar/pub when you look it up on the Internet. Even though they served bottled beer Shep was most disappointed and suggested we head to a pub instead. The problem being that would have added nearly an hour on to the walk.

He seemed happier as he, Pam, and myself sucked on a brace of 330ml San Miguels (overpriced but cold) and Adam, Roxanne, and Clive took more respectable refreshment. He did however point out that if they hadn't spent money on Wayne Rooney's football boot (and, one assumes, Sugar Ray Leonard's boxing glove) they might have been able to afford to sort out some draught beer in their establishment.

 

It was an odd place but in TADS we like to visit odd places and we've definitely seen odder. We didn't get to see Pagham's Grade I listed church (St Thomas a Becket) but we did see an Elvis Presley that looked more like Frankenstein's Monster and a road with the amusing name of Pinball Alley.

 

Pagham is famous for its annual pram race (the world's oldest) that takes place every Boxing Day. You have to cover three miles with your pram but you also have to drink three pints of beer while doing so (that'll set you back if you stop at the Pagham Beach Cafe). Pagham's other claim to fame is that Joe Biden's paternal fourth great-grandfather James Byden was christened in the church in 1767. The village was also home to two former F1 drivers in John Watson and Derek Bell. It's not on record how they fared, or even if they ever competed, in the pram race.

We headed off on the home stretch, sometimes on the beach, sometimes on a coastal path (of sorts), and sometimes on roads. At one point through a rather fancy gated community and later through the village of Aldwick. Shep and I again moved ahead of the crowd. That's normally Adam's job but this time he seemed content to hang back with the others.

Clive talked a bit about his forthcoming impressive bike ride to Dunwich in Suffolk and back (about 250 miles in total and one he's done before) and I mentioned that it was folk singer Shirley Collins' 90th birthday and as a proud Sussex gal I felt it was highly appropriate we were in her home county for the occasion. Even if we would be ending up in the resort that Which magazine had recently voted Britain's worst.

That seemed a bit harsh (many of us have had good times in Bognor before) but the centre of Bognor Regis did look a bit Brexit. Boarded up pubs and hotels and the pier had virtually nothing on it. Either attractions or people. Imagine the piers of Brighton or Southend on a Saturday in July being that quiet! Even on an overcast day. 

Bognor Regis' motto, once quite simply 'action', is "to excel" (Chichester has gone for "firm in faith) and it'd be a very partial judge who could honestly say Bognor excels at much. Yet all we needed was a pub, a curry house, a train station, and maybe somewhere to buy some train booze and Bognor had all four.

 

The Waverley pub was cheerful and comfy and we enjoyed a couple of pints there before heading on to Cafe Punjab which did some delicious tarka daal and cheese naan that, sadly, I was too bloated on lager to even get close to finishing it. They even had beer on tap (including a pale ale, Bombay Bicycle) and all (except Roxanne and Clive who had headed back after the pub) agreed it was a decent Indian meal and all also seemed to agree it had been a good walk and a fun day. 

I certainly thought so. Adam and Shep headed back to the car and I picked up some train booze before Pam and I headed back to London, changing at East Croydon. I'm not sure my account of the day totally does justice to how much I enjoyed it but I did and unlike The Salt Path you can be assured that my account is entirely truthful. You might not get the most dramatic walks with TADS, but you do at least get honest ones.

Thanks to Pam, Shep, Adam, Roxanne, and Clive for joining me, thanks to Adam for the map included in this blog, and to Pam, Clive, and Shep for the snaps too. You can probably guess which one Shep took. No TADS now until Bank Holiday weekend in August and that's the two dayer. This year we're going to Weston-super-Mare. Some TADS do. Some TADS don't.

 

*and that doesn't include all the LbF/Thames Path/London LOOP/Capital Rang/unaffiliated walks or even the few TADS walk that took place before this blogging malarkey kicked off. Let alone my solo perambulations.