Avoided the rain but not the sea

On a grey windy evening Jo, Rosie, Kat and Lynn met up on Southsea promenade as a few drops of rain fell. Valiantly we headed off across the baron and empty expanse of the beach, battling against a chilling head wind and a few diamonds of rain drops hitting our faces. Exclamations of hats and coats forgotten were just heard over the rush of the air and wash of the sea.

With a full moon due to rise later the tide was at its lowest ebb so we took the beach all the way around the Fort Cumberland headland, clambering over long since storm broken quay rocks, stepping past old jetty post stumps and avoiding the green slippery rocks. The softer beach and fresh rock pools overwhelmed a couple of trainers at the turn of the headland as we stared across the narrow but racing channel to the beaches of Hayling Island. Kat nearly pulled the plug on the whole thing at this point! (Take a look at the photos)

The practice drills of the RNLI crews meant we could not make it all the way to the Halying Ferry Jetty on the beach but took the road to the end of the peninsula (it would be wrong to get so close and not get to the "top"!) and looked out over a muddy very low tide Langstone harbour. From here we made out way back along the shoreline of the harbour and down onto the squishy seaweed covered western edge of Lock Lake. As we clambered back up from the beach heading back towards home we spotted 2 foxes on the far side of the green, shortly followed by a well camouflaged 3rd by Jo without her contact lenses in - much to her disbelief! From here it was a SUP chat (should i get one, type, best pumps, where to go, summer plans etc) walk home with a slight detour when Kat went into autopilot and missed the road back to the coffee cup (doh!) and did an extra loop around Highland Road Cemetry. A good walk and catch up and without Goodgym probably not a night I would have chosen to walk for a couple of hours - but we mostly stayed dry despite the first few drops and the wind eased. Thank you ladies for a good evening!