Barnetby le Wold to the Humber Bridge

We didn't have great expectations for today's walk, but it was rather better than we'd expected. It was initially cool and sunny, and although it clouded over and we had a few spots of rain later in the day, it didn't come to anything. We had advance purchase tickets for the journey home (being around a third of the cost of off-peak singles) so we really wanted to reach Hessle for 16.33, so we were pleased that Elaine Lennox at Rookery Farm was happy to provide us with a cooked breakfast at 7am. The room had been so spotless that we wondered if she had very recently started doing B&B, but apparently she has been doing it for 4 years. It's an excellent B&B and extremely good value.

We left at about 7.45 and were back on the route of the Viking Way by 8.00, just as it was getting light. We walked out of Barnetby and joined the A18 spur to the roundabout at the end of the M180. Crossing the slip road up from and down to the A180 was challenging, unsurprisingly given it was rush hour, but we managed at last and took a tarmacked track heading north east from the roundabout.

We crossed a lane and our route became a delightful grassy track, through attractive rolling countryside. The only downside was the noise of traffic from the A15 and the A180. We noticed a dog (a springer spaniel) coming towards us and assumed that his owner would follow, but this didn't happen...and the dog seemed happy to accept us as 'his people'. We reached a minor road and turned left, having to grab the dog by the collar when a car passed. We asked if they recognised the dog - they didn't, but they did tell us that there was a brewery nearby, which explained the (not unpleasant) smell that Richard and I had both noticed. As for the dog, we decided to phone the number on its collar. The phone went to voicemail, but the owner rang us back and was with us in no more than about 5 minutes. He was grateful to us for ringing and explained that the dog used to run off a lot but hadn't done it recently, but they had a new young dog on the farm, which might explain the change in behaviour.

Excitement over, we took a path diagonally back to the north west. We saw deer in the field in front of us, but I was too slow to photograph them. Eventually the path ran next to the A15 for a kilometre or so, but we were walking on the field edge, well separated from the road. We caught sight of the top of the pillars supporting the Humber Bridge in the distance, and after crossing to the other side of the A15 and following the B1206 for a while, we continued to walk to the north west (i.e. away from the Humber Bridge).

Eventually we reached the edge of the escarpment, and at the point at which our road began to descend rapidly, we turned right on a track under the pylons for the final time. The view across the Ancholme valley to our left was quite spectacular, as was the view to the Humber estuary to our right - though there was a rather ugly cement works in the way! We followed the track towards South Ferriby, stopping at a bench near a viewpoint for lunch, and passing the chalk quarry that feeds the cement works.

We passed above the church at South Ferriby, and descended towards the estuary, crossing the A1077. We were on the final leg now, so it might have been reasonable to assume that the signposting would be good; in reality both mapping and signposting were dodgy in places. The map showed us coming down to the edge of the estuary before South Ferriby Cliff, but on the ground, that route was clearly marked as dangerous. We were extremely lucky to find the correct route, slightly later, because there was no signpost in the direction we were going in (though there was a signpost in the opposite direction when we reached the estuary, confirming that we'd got the right route).

Slightly further on and the mapping went even more awry. If we'd tried to follow the route shown by Barton Cliff we would have got distinctly wet; the dry route skirts around South Cliff Farm then returns to the estuary at Chowder Ness. From here to the end of the Viking Way we had excellent views of the Humber Bridge, which we photographed from every angle. From Cowdner Ness to nearly the end, we were on a cinder path, which was lovely and soft to walk on; close to the end we passed the men laying it! We passed the Far Ings Natural Nature Reserve, with first a hotel and then a visitor centre; then we passed a works making roof tiles, then (under the bridge) we reached the Humber Bridge viewing area and some rather dilapidated buildings. We knew that the official end of the Viking Way was somewhere here, but we managed not to see the sign. A female walker directed us inland to the bridge over Barton Haven, and from here we walked to the (new and prizewinning) Waters' Edge Visitor Centre. We designated this as the JordanWalks end of the Viking Way and celebrated with photographs and a cup of tea.

We crossed back over Barton Haven and walked through a residential area until we found the route up onto the Humber Bridge. Whilst crossing the bridge (which was a longest single-span suspension bridge in the world when it was opened in 1981) was not as exciting an experience as some people make out on TripAdvisor, walking across was interesting enough and we took lots more photographs. At the Hessle end of the bridge, we followed National Cycle Route 1 on a rather circuitous route that took us under the bridge and back again twice before heading towards the centre of Hessle. We followed a residential road to Hessle Station, which is singularly lacking in facilities, and waited half an hour or so for the 16.33 train to Doncaster.