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Bosham to Fishbourne via Chichester

I thought this was my last walk of 2013 (working backwards) but it seems it’s the penultimate one – I did a walk to Buckler’s Hard in September before my IBS/wheat allergy got too much (I know what causes it now, but back then it knocked out a few months of walking).

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“Apparently I am going to BOSHam according to the guard. Sorry, even locals pronounce it Bozumm (Bos-ham, no gap tho) #yourenotlocalareyou”
5:25 PM – 29 Aug 2013

Anyway as you can see on the handy map below, this was from Bosham railway station to Fishbourne station (past the Roman Villa in fact), connecting to the almost hidden footpath running around the top of the creek. My dad has a mooring here for his yacht, and I grew up either bobbing up and down listening to curlews, or hanging around the pub or church waiting for him to row back. Strangely I’d never walked here though…always business (the business of sailing, which always seems to include a) getting wet and b) dawn starts, both of which I hate).

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Anyway away from the grotty yachties it’s quite nice, although you need to know the times for the path as part of it marked on the map is tidal. In fact if I’d arrived a bit earlier I could have head around this house, rather than heading inland up the road by the disused boat yard, which as you can see from the pics I was obsessed by. Anything rusting or ruined, I’m there…

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Not exactly sure what this little one was doing there by the ruined yard…I hope not trying to get on Duck Dynasty?

Heading past the Ye Olde Celticky Craft Shoppe and being equally surprised and saddened it was still there, and onto the Church yard via the gate. Obligatory picture of a tombstone:

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I could bore you with pictures of the medieval-looking-but-probably-not clubhouse (I think it’s a clubhouse, or a storage barn) and the quay, but like many elements of Bosham these have been much photographed. Tide was going out by this time I think, so I could go around the road by the pub, it’s a classic place where people park and don’t realise the road floods there. The local pub has many amusing photos of this. Strangely when I was there, there was a fire engine on call…not sure what that was about as there wasn’t a sign of a fire. Cat up a tree?

Around the bay, and it’d not be a photo tour of Bosham without the equally obligatory sunset shot of the church. I’m not joking when I say that on certain days the photogs are like flies around here, it’s as bad or worse than Reculver – somewhere we will talk about in the future.

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And so around the shoreline…I then found there is a ferry across from Itchenor which I’d never ever heard about which was good news. I’ve not really explained the rules, yes there are rules about this mad quest – but one of them is I can take ferries or bridges across the mouths of rivers if they are there. This means I don’t have to walk along every little frigging inlet, this meant I could skip Appledore and all that…which was very good news as on a previous trip I followed an old path and was faced by a dual lane motorway and no crossing or bridge trying to walk from Chichester to Appledore…I still would love to walk there, but it means I don’t have to.

So I headed across the fields and country lanes to Fishbourne. It was getting dark, but was amused to find that farmers now harvest at night. Although the night time tractor traffic across those little lanes was fun in the dark, I did have my trusty torch to point myself out to drivers. I walked across a very dark field (with voices coming from the field, but didn’t hang around) and watched the stars while listening to my iPod. I seem to remember I had a Chinese and a scamper for the train at Fishbourne station, but made it. What a difference having a smartphone makes in both looking up timetables and local takeaway opportunities – in past walks the lack of info, and good maps made it quite fraught. And hungry at times, too.

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Photographs of the whole trip are now uploaded to Picasa or some are on the map below.