Walberswick Walk

Today was the first Thursday of the month, so the day for the U3A longer walks group monthly walk. This month we were led by Martin and Jessica, the first time they have led for the group.

We met at Newdelight Walks, about half way between Westleton and Blythburgh and headed for Walberswick. This was our route.

I found a nice article from David Falk that talks about the first half of the walk (see here) Here are a few of my photos from our version. Right at the start we saw some lovely heather flowers.

How many varieties are there? Well according to this, which describes 52 of them,  there are over 800. 

Then we walked through the trees and bracken of Fen covert.

We had a long stretch through the reeds across Westwood Marshes to  the Suffolk Coast Path

Now I was on familiar ground passing the ruins of Westwood Marshes Mill.

More reeds.

We had a little walk along the beach...

...and saw lots of people crabbing...

...as we headed into Walberswick, where we got some yummy ice-cream.

Now we headed on up the river Blyth past Southwold Harbour.

The bailey bridge across the river to Southwaold is still closed.

Passing the bridge we carried on up the winding River Blyth seeing Blackshore Mill on the other side....

...and the impressive Quay House, now available as a "holiday cottage" that sleeps 14.

The tide was low and there were plenty of wading birds on the marshes. Here is one of the herons we saw.

It is quite a windy path and had to walk all the way around Tinker's Marshes to get to Tinker's House...

...behind which we stopped for our lunch break.

Back onto heathland...

...we went by the ghostly Westwood Lodge....

...which according to its listing, dates from the mid 16th century.

Back now along the Sandlings Walk....

...to this statue close to the start of our walk....

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".

And then we were back at our cars...

...to drive to Dingle Hill Tearooms in Dunwich for some tea and cakes, as you can see at the start of this post.

Thank-you Martin and Jessica for an excellent walk and the others for the great company. I'll be a way for next month's walk, but my turn to lead in November.

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