Calshot Beach to Hythe

My niece Rachel is currently living in the house that was my sister and brother-in-law's in Hythe (the Hampshire one) and we were in the area for the weekend to visit Rachel and to do some walking. Yesterday, we'd walked from Milford on Sea to the Hampshire/Dorset border at Chewton Bunny, and back, and we'd stayed at the Southampton North Premier Inn. Today we wanted to do a relatively short walk close to Hythe, before going to see Rachel this afternoon. Although progress in establishing the England Coast Path all the way around the country is disappointingly slow, one of the complete sections runs from Calshot Beach to Portsmouth, crossing Southampton Water by way of the Hythe to Southampton Ferry, so an obvious possibility for today was to walk from Calshot to Hythe. There was even a convenient bus to catch back. 

Quite reasonably, Richard wasn't keen on the part of the walk around the Fawley oil refinery, so we'd also discussed the possibility of just walking from Calshot to Fawley Village, then retracing our steps, but I'm pleased we completed the whole thing, partly as a memorial to my sister Chris, who died just last year, partly because I like finishing things off properly, but mostly because - with the exception of about a mile in the middle - it turned out to be a very pleasant and varied walk. The weather remained warm and sunny (and it got worse to the extent that we had to shelve our plans to walk a section of Avon Valley Path the following weekend, prior to visiting our Grandson and his family), so we were grateful for the fact that a reasonable proportion of today's walk was in shade.

We had a straightforward drive from the Premier Inn to Calshot, though finding the best car park was a little complicated. Calshot Castle is at the end of a spit which extends from the south coast across the entrance to Southampton Water. Various other buildings are at the end of the spit, including the lifeboat station and an activity centre and I think the sailing club is down there too - and members of the sailing club can probably drive further onto the spit! However, the nearest public car park is the Calshot Ameneties car park, about a kilometre back from the end of the spit, close to the point where the marshes which extend along the western edge of Southampton Water begin. Another kilometre further back, at the point where the road from the north reaches the coast, there’s a little one way system leading to the road to and along the spit, and in the one-way system is the Calshot Beach car park. Apple Maps got the two car parks confused; it accepted us putting the marker on Calshot Amenities car park, but then announced we had arrived as we drive past Calshot Beach car park. We initially thought that the Amenities car park would be better, so kept driving, but when we got there we discovered a smaller car park than we’d expected, with quite a lot of large vehicles parked leaving only rather small spaces between, and we guessed (it turned out rightly) that the access road would get busy later on. So we drove back, around the one-way system (where, we later realised, we could probably have parked free of charge by the side of the road...) and back to the Calshot Beach Carpark.

Parking saga over, we made use of the conveniently placed toilets, then walked east along the top of the beach, just in front of the row of beach huts. On yesterday’s walk we’d had good views to the Needles, at the western end of the Isle of Wight; today there were misty views across the Solent to Cowes, with the the Southampton to East Cowes ferries coming and going. Nearer at hand, groups of people were enjoying the relative low tide and relative cool; some were paddling. We didn’t appreciate that we too were about to take advantage of the low tide - and of the fact that I happened to know the state of the tide because I had checked tide times last night, when investigating cruise ship comings and goings at Southampton (which don’t seem linked to the state of the tide by the way). Low tide had been around 7am, with the double-peaked high tide (caused by water flow around the Isle of Wight) having maxima around 2pm and 4pm.

We left the beach, passed to the other side of the row of chalets, and walked a short distance along the access road to where a footpath sign was pointing across the marshes. This was the start of the next leg of officially open England Coast Path, though other signs made it clear that this is actually only a low tide route, impassable at high tide. It was clearly not high tide, but the route was still a little muddy in places, something I was perhaps more aware of than usual because I was walking in trainers not walking boots. There were typical marshland views, with the Solent beyond, with the Red Funnel Southampton to East Cowes ferries still ploughing up and down, along with occasional other boats, and we noticed the much faster Redjet ferries for the first time. Behind us, though into the Sun, there were views back to the circular Calshot Castle and the other buildings at the end of the spit. 

Meanwhile, ahead of us was the former Fawley Power Station, with the boats of the Fawley Marine Terminal beyond. We crossed the swing bridge by the power station (with a dock on the inland side of us) and then followed a path which skirted around the power station. Various clues (e.g. "MTB Blade Runner Two" in the dock and massive parts of wind turbines in the yard by the power station building, with a crane about to start moving something) gave us a clue that the former power station is now being used by the offshore wind industry. 

Past what remains of the power station, there was a nice section with a hedge to our left and good views to the marshland to our right, bizarrely with occasional apple trees. We worked our way round to Ashlett Creek, with its attractive quay and 19th Century tidal mill beyond. As we walked past the sailing club, a man appeared; I couldn't help but wonder if he was checking up on us! After photographing the creek from various angles, we passed the Jolly Sailor pub and climbed up the lane and then followed around the edge of Fawley Village to the Church. It was hard to believe how close we were to the oil refinery. 

Between Fawley Church and the road we'd driven along, we were initially following an elderly couple through an attractive wooded belt; they stopped to let us past. There were strange noises emanating from the oil refinery on the other side of the trees; we eventually realised that it was the sound of the flares. We reached the road by a little school and crossed to the other side. Soon we were able to cut through onto and walk along the edge of the playing fields of the Gang Warily Recreation and Community Centre. We stopped part-way along for me to change my socks, though walking in trainers was working well; my feet felt quite comfortable.

The mile along the pavement alongside the A326 was definitely the least good of the walk, with Holbury on one side and the oil refinery on the other. The local knowledge gained was useful though; when we later got a message from Rachel asking us to pick up some shopping, we knew exactly where to go (we'd walked past two Co-op shops in this section, with the second one a very decent size, with parking, so we would be able to stop here on our drive back to Hythe ). My sister lived in Holbury when she first moved from Lymington, and her second husband moved in here when they were first married, before they bought the house in Butts Ash, on the outskirts of Hythe (or perhaps it is Dibden Purlieu!).

Before the roundabout where the road from Hythe to Holbury crosses the A326, we cut through on a more minor road which took us past the entrance to the ExonMobil terminal, with oil tankers coming and going. For the first time on this walk, I wasn't entirely sure of the route from here, though by the time we got to the point where we were intended to cut through onto a track, it was indeed signposted; the issue was that I'd thought we might need to head this way rather sooner. The remainder of the walk back to the shores of Southampton Water, mostly on an undulating track through woodland, was a very pleasant surprise. We met some cyclists and some other walkers, all struggling a bit with the undulations, but the shade was very much appreciated, and it was pretty countryside. 

The final section of the walk back to Southampton Water had been along Frost Lane and this brought us to the aptly named Shore Road. A short distance along here there is a little parking area with three benches nearby, in partial shade. Some cyclists were sitting at one of these, but we took advantage of one of the others to have an early lunch. We then continued past various marine-related industries to the town centre. I don't think we took quite the right route here, but we know it well enough to be able to make our way around to the promenade, from where there were good views to the cruise ships due to sail from Southampton Docks in a few hours' time.  There is no direct route along the promenade to the entrance to the Hythe Pier (which is the Hythe-Southampton Ferry terminal), but again we knew the way round, through Hythe's little shopping centre. 

We weren't going any further today, but we wanted to find the bus stop - which is close to the  entrance to pier - prior to seeking refreshments in Hythe. As we got to the bus stop, the very late running no 9 bus to Calshot, supposedly an hour before the one we were intending to catch, was just approaching the bus stop. We decided not to catch this one, but instead went and bought an ice-cream! The bus an hour later was also 20 minutes or so late, but we were able to track its progress and we found a shady spot in which to wait. We had a good journey back to Calshot Beach, where the beach was very much busier than it had been, and the tide much higher. We had a little potter around then drove back to Hythe to see Rachel, via the Holbury Co-op!