Snape Walk

Today was my eighth and last walk in Joyce's Mini Walking Festival. Indeed it was the last walk of the festival. This was the listing in the brochure...

"Tue: 22nd Sept *A NEW WALK* Snape, Aldeburgh, Thorpeness and Friston. A 14.5 mile circular walk with a coffee stop at Thorpeness Meare.**"

When I asked if I could go on it Joyce said it was fully booked. But Ann also wanted to do it, so we formed a select second group of 2 and Joyce sent me details of the route so we could follow them starting 15 minutes behind them. Neither of us had done the walk before, but Joyce supplied us with a map with the route marked.

We met at Snape Maltings just after 10, as planned. I enjoyed seeing this picture by Maggi Hambling on my vitist into the concert hall to use the toilets before we started.

This was our route, which revisited Thorpeness where we started and finished on Friday's walk led by Peter. It included the Sailor's Path, which we had walked before, but with a loop to Thorpeness rather than the shorter loop to Aldeburgh we had done in January (see here). It uses some of the Sandlings Walk and Suffolk Coastal Path. 

Here are some of my photos from the walk.

It was a lovely sunny morning at Snape Maltings.

The main group set off to cross the  River Alde and into Snape village, while Ann and I waited for our appointed 10:25 start time

We admired the village sign before turning right along Priory Road.

Ah. This is why Joyce had brought us this way. The Snape Word on the Street micro-library. Charming. Soon afterwards we found the crossroads where we joined the Sandlings Way.

We passed plenty of pigs in the fields....

...before we arrived in Friston. Here is St. Mary's Church, which we saw only from a distance.

Of course we are not far from Sizewell here and the pylons march across the skyline.

Well this was something. We were walking along this path Ann on my left when, just in front of this, this tree fell over the path. 10 seconds later and it would have hit Ann on the head.

I liked this fancy Sandlings Walk sign, it is apparently 1 of 12 along the path. Read more about the sculpture here. How much of it have I walked now, I wonder? We've done a few stretches of it recently. The bird is actually properly called a Sanderling - a Sandling being a sand eel or small flat fish. [Update: The bird on the signs is actually a Nightjar. The name of the walk, The Sandling, as  described here, refers to "the Suffolk Sandling that used to stretch from the outskirts of Ipswich to Southwold which is an area of lowland heath, Britain's rarest wildlife habitat, and the Suffolk Coast and Heaths Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty"].

We managed to not be misled into continuing to follow the Sandlings Walk and turned right towards Thorpeness at the right place. 10/10 for my map-reading today 😀.

As we passed this green, a ball was overhit and came down the bank towards us. Another near miss! Not that a trickling golfball would have hurt as much as a tree on the head.

This post had a sign on both sides. The other side has it spelt properly. Can you spot the mistake on this one?

As we neared the golf clubhouse and car park we got a view of the House in the Clouds (which is available for holiday let) and the Windmill...

...which was built in as a corn mill 1803 in nearby Aldringham and moved here and converted to pump water in 1923. It was restored in 1976.

We arrived at the cafe opposite the meare to find the main group having their lunch. In the background you can see some houses that featured in a photograph from last Friday's walk. See here.

Here are the main group setting off again. Ann and I gave them 10 minutes to get ahead of us before we followed.

Here they are in a group photo taken by Robert.

There are some lovely houses along the sea shore. I wonder how long it will be before they are lost to the sea, as nearby Dunwich was?

We spotted the group in front crossing the marsh as we were still on the beach. The right turn must be soon, then.

As we crossed the marsh we could see, in the distance, the house in the clouds and windmill with Sizewell power station behind.

Now we are on the Sailor's Path, "walking in the footsteps of the seafarers who travelled from the Suffolk coast to the village of Snape".

We had great views across Hazlewood marshes and Alde River mudflats.

We got to walk along some boardwalk. I guess it gets rather soggier here in winter.

These horses came to say hello.

Not far to go now as we could see the Maltings Concert Hall across the river. Can you see the group in front on the path on the far right of the picture? We waved at them, but I don't think they saw us until they crossed the bridge back to the start not far in front of us.

The Maltings complex looked lovely in the afternoon sunshine.

And here are our fellow walkers at the end.

Thanks Joyce for the lovely walk with great sea views, and to Ann for the company. So that was it for the Mini Walking Festival. 11 days of beautiful weather and beautiful walks. Thanks to Joyce for organising it all! How did you manage to organise the great weather too?

You can see more details of our route here on MapMyWalk and more of my photos here on Flickr.