Living in the middle of the UK, it's easy to feel land-locked, but thankfully the East Anglian coastline is only an hour or two away. More significantly it offers a wealth of stunning scenery, sweeping white sandy beaches, huge dramatic skies, pretty villages and historic market towns. If that hasn't convinced you, large parts of the area are also designated 'Areas of Outstanding Natural Beauty' (ANOB), 'North Norfolk Heritage Coast', Sites of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) and RSPB nature reserves, and with an extensive Coast Path conveniently intertwined around these sights and sites, it comes highly recommended, if you, like me, like all things natural.
One of the few beaches in East Anglia that faces West is Snettisham, overlooking The Wash. It's a unique and special place, quiet and off the beaten track, offering a retreat, somewhere for solace or rejuvenation, or to catch your breath in a busy world. It's also somewhere to witness one of nature's most awesome sights and sounds - the dawn flight of thousands of pink-footed geese gaggling noisily as they fly from the mudflats after being pushed off their feeding grounds by the tide, over Snettisham beach to the roost banks and islands in the RSPB nature reserve.
Snettisham is one of Norfolk's best kept secrets, home to thousands of species of water birds but only visited by those determined enough to be there - people with scopes, cameras and walking boots mainly - as there's no vehicle access to the beach. The photo opportunities are endless, from the dawn flights against a salmon pink sky, across the sculptured swirling patterns of the mudflats, to the long photogenic line of single-storey bungalows perched on an elevated ridge at the top of the beach, overlooking the sea to the front and the RSPB lake to the rear! This place is hard to leave behind ... .
But there is more to see! Continuing towards the north Norfolk coast you'll come across the sleepy little village of Holme Next the Sea, but don't be fooled into thinking that's all there is to this place! This is where you can pick up the North Norfolk Coast Path and follow it eastwards as it hugs the coastline for 30 or so miles all the way to Cromer! What you will see is mile upon mile of wide white sandy tidelines, grassy dunes and spits, and behind it an extensive area rich in salt marshes, creeks and dunes, all accessible on foot. 'Must see' places en route include Wells next the Sea (which is actually quite a long walk from the sea!) and Blakeney Point (a nature reserve at the end of a long sand spit, accessed the easy way by boat, or the painful way, on foot ...). Guess which we did!
We recently re-visited Blakeney with the sole intention of walking the whole length of the spit to the Point, to see the seals. What I failed to establish before we embarked on this venture was the length of the said sandspit! Driven by a need to see the seals and to achieve my objective, we set off along the beach towards infinity, or so it seemed. An hour later the horizon still looked the same. Another half hour on and we were exposed to the cold easterly winds which began to whip up the soft sand making it feel more like a desert storm than a walk along the coast.
Two hours on we saw our first sprinkling of seals and suddenly the long walk was worthwhile. Determined to have pictorial evidence of the focal point to our epic trek, we took photos of these cute but perplexed creatures before turning tail to retrace what was left of our footprints - only by now the temperature had plummeted almost as much as the force of the north east winds had intensified! Worse still, the sea had reclaimed the sandy shoreline leaving us to scrunch our way noisily across mile after mile of shingle towards yet another horizon that didn't seem to ever get any closer. But it was only 6 miles in total, and we'd achieved our objective of walking to the Point, and we'd seen the Blakeney seals - result!
We'd decided to end a previous day trip to Norfolk visit by seeing what Wells next the Sea was like, to sit by the harbour, watch the boats, have fish 'n chips, see the famous beach huts and of course, the sea ... but we hadn't anticipated a long walk too. Wells isn't so much 'next the sea' as 'nowhere near the sea'. As a result of silting in the harbour the sea is now a mile away from the town. But some time later we found it, after following families with buckets and spades, but as soon as we reached the long line of unique, brightly coloured, much-photographed beach huts ... my camera battery died! Another visit to 'Wells Not Next the Sea' is called for ... .
Following the Norfolk coastline clockwise past the seaside resorts of Cromer and beyond, we found another stunning example of Norfolk's unspoilt natural beaches. Sea Palling is tucked away, down a path, through a field and behind a screen of sand dunes! Once through the dunes the view on the other side is of a pale golden sandy beach stretching way into the distance, protected by nine off-shore reefs standing in the sea as if on guard. Erosion is a very real problem on this part of the coast, and the threat of flooding high. Perhaps nowhere more so than Happisburgh, which was our next stop.
My first thoughts when I stepped on the beach at Happisburgh was that it is anything but a 'Happi' place! (Actually this place is pronounced 'Hazeborough' but it looked 'unhappy' rather than 'hazy' so I'll stick with my original if incorrect pronunciation for now!). What made is less than 'happi' for me was the devastation caused to cliff top houses by erosion - the sea is doing it's best to reclaim the land, the beach, cliffs and anything that happens to be on it at the time. The evidence is strewn all around and is sad to see, but it's also a reminder of that such is the power of nature that it can't be challenged with any real success, and maybe we shouldn't even try.
One of the few beaches in East Anglia that faces West is Snettisham, overlooking The Wash. It's a unique and special place, quiet and off the beaten track, offering a retreat, somewhere for solace or rejuvenation, or to catch your breath in a busy world. It's also somewhere to witness one of nature's most awesome sights and sounds - the dawn flight of thousands of pink-footed geese gaggling noisily as they fly from the mudflats after being pushed off their feeding grounds by the tide, over Snettisham beach to the roost banks and islands in the RSPB nature reserve.
Snettisham is one of Norfolk's best kept secrets, home to thousands of species of water birds but only visited by those determined enough to be there - people with scopes, cameras and walking boots mainly - as there's no vehicle access to the beach. The photo opportunities are endless, from the dawn flights against a salmon pink sky, across the sculptured swirling patterns of the mudflats, to the long photogenic line of single-storey bungalows perched on an elevated ridge at the top of the beach, overlooking the sea to the front and the RSPB lake to the rear! This place is hard to leave behind ... .
But there is more to see! Continuing towards the north Norfolk coast you'll come across the sleepy little village of Holme Next the Sea, but don't be fooled into thinking that's all there is to this place! This is where you can pick up the North Norfolk Coast Path and follow it eastwards as it hugs the coastline for 30 or so miles all the way to Cromer! What you will see is mile upon mile of wide white sandy tidelines, grassy dunes and spits, and behind it an extensive area rich in salt marshes, creeks and dunes, all accessible on foot. 'Must see' places en route include Wells next the Sea (which is actually quite a long walk from the sea!) and Blakeney Point (a nature reserve at the end of a long sand spit, accessed the easy way by boat, or the painful way, on foot ...). Guess which we did!
We recently re-visited Blakeney with the sole intention of walking the whole length of the spit to the Point, to see the seals. What I failed to establish before we embarked on this venture was the length of the said sandspit! Driven by a need to see the seals and to achieve my objective, we set off along the beach towards infinity, or so it seemed. An hour later the horizon still looked the same. Another half hour on and we were exposed to the cold easterly winds which began to whip up the soft sand making it feel more like a desert storm than a walk along the coast.
Two hours on we saw our first sprinkling of seals and suddenly the long walk was worthwhile. Determined to have pictorial evidence of the focal point to our epic trek, we took photos of these cute but perplexed creatures before turning tail to retrace what was left of our footprints - only by now the temperature had plummeted almost as much as the force of the north east winds had intensified! Worse still, the sea had reclaimed the sandy shoreline leaving us to scrunch our way noisily across mile after mile of shingle towards yet another horizon that didn't seem to ever get any closer. But it was only 6 miles in total, and we'd achieved our objective of walking to the Point, and we'd seen the Blakeney seals - result!
We'd decided to end a previous day trip to Norfolk visit by seeing what Wells next the Sea was like, to sit by the harbour, watch the boats, have fish 'n chips, see the famous beach huts and of course, the sea ... but we hadn't anticipated a long walk too. Wells isn't so much 'next the sea' as 'nowhere near the sea'. As a result of silting in the harbour the sea is now a mile away from the town. But some time later we found it, after following families with buckets and spades, but as soon as we reached the long line of unique, brightly coloured, much-photographed beach huts ... my camera battery died! Another visit to 'Wells Not Next the Sea' is called for ... .
Following the Norfolk coastline clockwise past the seaside resorts of Cromer and beyond, we found another stunning example of Norfolk's unspoilt natural beaches. Sea Palling is tucked away, down a path, through a field and behind a screen of sand dunes! Once through the dunes the view on the other side is of a pale golden sandy beach stretching way into the distance, protected by nine off-shore reefs standing in the sea as if on guard. Erosion is a very real problem on this part of the coast, and the threat of flooding high. Perhaps nowhere more so than Happisburgh, which was our next stop.
My first thoughts when I stepped on the beach at Happisburgh was that it is anything but a 'Happi' place! (Actually this place is pronounced 'Hazeborough' but it looked 'unhappy' rather than 'hazy' so I'll stick with my original if incorrect pronunciation for now!). What made is less than 'happi' for me was the devastation caused to cliff top houses by erosion - the sea is doing it's best to reclaim the land, the beach, cliffs and anything that happens to be on it at the time. The evidence is strewn all around and is sad to see, but it's also a reminder of that such is the power of nature that it can't be challenged with any real success, and maybe we shouldn't even try.
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