DAY 14 - THURSDAY 20st SEPTEMBER 2007

Wompatuck State Park & Hull (Miles to Date: 811)

The weather had been improving all week and this morning was glorious – at least it would have been if we had not been woken up at 2:00am by a crashing noise outside. Karen woke first and leapt of bed believing somebody was stealing the bikes, and making as much noise as she could. This of course woke Mark who thought there was a rutting moose inside the tent a thought that was then replaced by Karen was having one of her vivid dreams until he heard the noises himself. Karen, being far the braver of the pairing went out of the tent to investigate the noise to be confronted by the stare of a raccoon – who being confronted by a scary human, with that just woken sticky up hair look and doing an impression of a rutting moose run off into the woods. We went back to bed, but as many people know raccoons are tenacious and cunning beasts and they came back a further two times. On the last occasion we went out to finally scare them off armed with a maglite torch and some rocks – by this time we found out that were actually two raccoons (which we later named Smash and Grab) who looked at us as if we were mad before running off. We found our newly acquired sour cream coffee cake in its packaging inside a plastic bag half way towards the woods – which was obviously their planned dinner for that day. It took about 20 minutes to pack away the food to safety before we went back off to bed knowing we had defeated those horrible beasts of the night.


As one might guess we were somewhat tired in the morning (at least the grown-ups were). We went into the village of Hingham to get some much need sustenance in the form of Starbucks coffee and a pastry. This also gave me a chance to get connected to the wireless LAN (available at your local Starbucks – courtesy of T-Mobile – hence not free). I had purchased an aircard; a PC card that plugs into your laptop and allows you to connect to the internet via the wireless mobile phone network. This is a good solution for the mobile traveller but has the problem of being very slow in areas where the signal strength is weak – for example State Park campsites. Going on to a wireless LAN was like moving from the Dark Ages into the Industrial Revolution and I was able to make the arrangements for Karen’s trip to the UK to attend her mother’s funeral. I have made a mental note never to go back to dial up connections!!

By the time I had done all the necessary arrangements Jack and Emily were getting on the wrong side of being restless and it was time to go before things got ugly and we got banned and became an International outcast from Starbucks. We decided to go to Hull – not to far down the coast from where we were in Hingham. Now I mention Hingham, I don’t think I have fully briefed you all on this delightful town. It is very, very, very up-market – some of the houses are the size of a complete English Village. I have lived in smaller 4 bedroom houses than the garages on a number of the houses. It is the sort of town with a centre that doesn’t have many useful shops – mainly expensive boutiques and coffee shops. It is also near to the sea and has a quaint marina. One might hope to win the lottery and live there (perhaps not in the winter). Oh where was I …. Yes we went off to Hull which a peninsula which juts out into Boston Bay. Our mission was to find the Museum of Life Saving – which we struggled initially to find and when we did it was closed. So the only thing left to do was to head down to the beach, eat our lunch and play in the sea. The weather as continuing to be kind – we were blessed with bright sunshine and temperatures in the high 70Fs. After an hour or so it was time to head back to campsite for an early night of hopefully unbroken sleep.