12:10 — lunch at the seaview hotel, sitting outside in front of the hotel. the weather is quite sunny and, away from the wind, it's getting rather warm. we seem to have arrived just in time: a little bit later and all tables would have been occupied. enjoying the fine weather we lunch al fresco (now, that does sound posh, huh?) and enjoy the smoked island mackerel and horseradish pate along with a ginger beer.
shortly after 13:00 we get going and head for the coastal path — reasoning that it will in all likelihood lead along the sea front we had down to the same and turn east. it's been high tide just a little while ago and the beach is still flooded — which forces us to retrace our steps after about 500m as we hit on a gate marked private property, no throughway: hmph. the detour takes us all the way up to seaview high street and then quite a bit along the the road before we finally get down to the sea front again. once we are past the priory hotel we need to follow the path through the woods: the beach here is still covered by the tide. at first the path is quite nice, going up and down through the woods, unfortunately, it quickly turns muddy and becomes rather difficult to navigate without turning ourselves into mud hogs…and it stays that way until we eventually reach st helen's duver: tiring.
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mud tired.
