Thorpeness Walk

 Today was my fifth walk in Joyce's Mini Walking Festival. This was the listing in the brochure...

"Fri: 18th Sept *A NEW WALK* Thorpeness to Sizewell. A 12-mile circular walk taking in coastal views and the Sandlings Way.***"

This walk was led by Peter, who is a great fan of walking at the Suffolk coast. It was another walk I hadn't done before although it overlapped with several that I had.

This was our route..

We again had a full complement of 6 walkers.

Here are a few of my photos.

Peter briefed us on the route at the start,

Behind us as we left was the Thorpeness Meare with a view of the House in the Clouds and the Windmill.

Off we go!

We went along the sea shore to start with. There was strong wind and I had to go scrabbling in the vegetation to retrieve my hat which had blown off at one point.

The shingle beach had plenty of sea kale.

Coming up fro the beach our path took us by the Sizewell Hall conference centre.

We passed a caravan site. I think I could quite happily have one of the permanent ones with a sea view as a second home.

The restless sea gleamed like liquid metal in the sun.

 

 

Nearing Sizewell beach we came across boats beached on the shingle.

After a wee break at the beach car park we headed on past the power stations. You don't really appreciate how huge they are until you get close and walk past them... which takes a while.

We paused here to admire the sea.

We had a view of Southwold in the distance with many white horses in between.

Teresa struck a pose as she enjoyed the sea breeze and the view.

As we approached Minsmere sluice we got a view of the ruins of the original Leiston Abbey, the only foundation of the Premonstratensian order known in Suffolk

Here we were at the South-east corner of the Minsmere Nature Reserve. We were going to walk along the southern edge of it.

We stopped for our lunch break at the Eel's Foot inn. The Adnams beer was excellent and the food was pretty good too.

 

We returned to Sizewell via the Sizewell Belts Nature Reserve, which I first visited on this walk in the Suffolk Walking Festival in 2018,  and Leiston Common. 

 

 Then it was back along the sea front to Thorpeness....

 

 

(Take note of this terrace of houses and see if you can spot them on a later walk blog).

...and the Meare. 

Thanks Peter for the bracing walk with great sea views, and to the rest if the group for the company. You can see more details of our route here on MapMyWalk and more of my photos here on Flickr.