Visitors Part II

Tuesday's outing with visitors was to Keyhaven on the Western Solent.  It is an area of wetlands called saltings, and a long shingle spit out to Hurst Castle (a Tudor fortification from the same era as the ill-fated Mary Rose) which was expanded during further altercations with French neighbours during Napoleonic times.

Paddleboarding had been the main objective of the outing because although we live at the confluence of Langstone and Chichester Harbours in the east (you can see them on this chart), both ideal watersports harbours, both are benighted by regular illegal sewage discharges and the water quality is appalling to the point of being a danger to health.

However, when we arrived at Keyhaven the tide was low, revealing expansive mud and the enthusiasm for paddling ebbed like the tide. After sitting on the seawall eating sandwiches for a while, 3 of us walked through the hamlet and out the shingle spit to the castle (fort) and lighthouse.

View across Keyhaven to Hurst Castle and Isle of Wight 

At Hurst Castle

Fort Albert on the Isle of Wight.

It was a sun baked day, and by the time we got back to the ice cream van the calm of an early autumnal late afternoon had settled on the risen tide and some folks were out paddling on the sheltered water behind the protecting spit.

It's a beautiful, untrammelled place with walking tracks and cycle paths - part of the New Forest National Park - sloes were ripening on the blackthorn, children dipped for crabs by the sea wall and swam in the creek as the sun lowered in the sky and glinted off the water, and we ended the day with a meal in a charming public house in Milton-on-sea.