George's World Tour South of Stoke - Day 12
I was awake on and off from about 5am, partly because of cars going past, and partly because the sun was out and it was getting hot in George. Claire insisted on staying in bed until 7.30am as that's when the alarm was set for. We had fried egg sandwiches for breakfast, during which several passers by said a cheery good morning. One even said "hello campers", and another was certain we must be from New Zealand as apparently no British folk would be driving round in a Japanese campervan with a canoe on the roof.
We picked the sea kayaks up at 9.30am and decided to turn left out of the river mouth today. Ben told us we might see some seals on the rocks on that side.When we left, the tide was going out so it was easy paddling. There was no wind and the sea was really calm. It was hot even at 9.30 and I'd covered myself in sunscreen, fully expecting to get sunburnt if I wasn't careful.
We worked our way round the coast, into all the little inlets and between the rocks. The sea was turquoise and it didn't really seem like we were in England. We spotted some baby oystercatchers and were about to go and have a closer look when their parents started dive bombing us. Oystercatchers have very long pointed beaks so we made a hasty retreat and headed over to have a look round some rocks a bit further out in the sea.
The rocks were the stereotypical shipwrecking spiky type of rocks. But when we got there the water was so calm in between them that we hardly had to do anything to stay still in the water. Which was a good job because we were far too busy seal spotting to worry about steering the boats.
There were probably about 10 seals around the rocks - a couple just lying on rocks in the sun and the others were in the water. They were curious about us and every now and then one would dive under, circle our boats under the water and then pop it's head out, usually behind us, making us jump by blowing water out of it's nose.We hung out with the seals for about an hour and we able to get pretty close to them, within a metre or two.
After that we paddled back across to the main coast and continued along like before. We eventually stopped for lunch on a little beach with sheer cliffs at the back, so there was no chance of anyone else turning up (unless they came by boat). I checked on my phone and was surprised to find that we were much further along than I thought.
After lunch we went along a bit further and stopped for a bit longer on another beach called Man Sands. I had a nap and Claire had a swim (well, she says she did but I was too busy napping to see). Then we had a muffin before heading back.
We took a more direct route back, which Claire was a bit grumpy about until she realised how quickly we got back. We went into another sea cave, which was a bit scary because it was dark, and we had to reverse all the way out as it was so narrow. Then we went in the cave from yesterday again, but couldn't do the cave loop because the water was too high and the gap too narrow.When we emerged from the second cave, Claire spotted a bird perched on the edge of the cliff and went frantically paddling towards it. It looked like a pigeon to me, but when it flew off it turned out to be a Peregrine!
We paddled back into the river mouth, again with the tide as it was now coming in, just as a big naval ship was leaving.
We finally got back on dry land at about 5.30pm, returned the boats, and headed straight for the free showers again to wash off my multi layers of sunscreen and a days worth of salt and sand. So far, I don't seem to have any sun burn.
This evening we've had a couple of beers and fish and chips, and I'm now so tired I can hardly type.
Hopefully I will sleep for longer tonight even though we're staying in the same place as last night.
We have lots of seal and boat photos which I will add when I get home.
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