Martlesham Creek, Woodbridge and Melton Walk

This week, Joyce is doing recces for the walks she is leading at the Suffolk Walking Festival next month. Today she was doing her Martlesham one and, as Dawn hadn't done most of the paths, we went along.

This is the third time I've done it in the last 6 months - most recently at the beginning of March for the Bury St Edmunds U3A Longer Walks group - see here.

This was our route again today.

We allowed extra time for the contraflow on the A14 but sailed through so were in plenty of time for the start. It was a lovely sunny day, if a little chilly, and a bit muddier than last time in places. There was a good turnout of 9 on the walk.

Here are a few of my photos. Dawn and I paid a little visit to Martlesham Church first. As the display in the porch says, there has been a centre of Christian Worship here since at least 1086. The church wasn't open so we just looked around the churchyard.

Assembling in the car park.

Before we got to the creek, the path took us through some lovely blackthorn blossom.

The tide was ebbing as we walked towards Woodbridge.

It gave us a good opportunity to observe the wading birds. See here for a description of some. The curved beak means this is a curlew.

We reached the River Deben at Kyson Point. The path here gets flooded at high tide, which was at 3:55pm today, so we'd better not dawdle too much.

But there was plenty of path here on the way north this morning.

Shortly afterwards we came across a flock of what looks like knots.

After the bit of mud at the start we were on a dry sandy path beside the river.

Some more wading birds. Another curlew and is the smaller one a dunlin, perhaps?

Woodbridge and its iconic Tide Mill hove into view.

We paused by the public toilets next to Everson's Woodbridge Boatyard, which has been in business since 1889, but it wasn't open today. 

The seaweed-covered sisters were still there in their boat.

Dawn spotted this weather vane on top of the Cruising Club building.

We passed these boats just before arriving at our drinks stop.

We took our drinks from  Coffeelink in Whisstocks Place and sat outside.

No time today to visit  The Longshed and view the longboat under construction - a full-size reconstruction of the 7th century Sutton Hoo ship. There appeared to be some choir practise going on upstairs so we couldn't visit The King's River Tapestry exhibition. Follow this link to my previous blog to see and read about it.

The magnolia was in flower at Swirly Cottage.

Along the river now towards Wilford Bridge. We passed more birds wading at the edge of the ebbing tide. It was just about low water now. Here's an oystercatcher with its distinctive carrot-coloured beak.

This hulk features in my photos each time I walk along here.

I think this may be a curlew sandpiper.

Moving away from the river just before Wilford bridge we passed the Melton fishing lakes.

No these are not late snowdrops, but Summer Snowflakes.

Bluebells are starting to appear in places.

We walked along a path parallel to Melton Park. This is the chapel of the former St. Audry's Asylum, which closed in 1993.

It gives its name to the wood we walked through.

We admired this blossom.

As before, we stopped for lunch by the  Foxburrow Farm Nature reserve visitor centre.

The Barn Garden was open today.

This robin was singing cheerfully in a tree in the garden.

They have both Welsh Mountain and Shetland sheep on the farm. They were being fed here.

We passed this large monkey puzzle tree with its unusual looking fruits. When  we first came here, on this walk in 2020, the owner was in his drive and said the tree was about 40 years old. He said they exploded with a bang and scattered their seeds, but they weren't fertile as you need a  male tree as well for pollination.

We spotted plenty of the fruit today.

We returned through Woodbridge.

A seasonal living wreath.

Back across the railway line.

We were back on our outward path when we got to Kyson Point - early enough to beat the rising tide.

Martlesham creek was filling up now the tide was coming in.

As we climbed up from the creek we came across a patch of bluebells. they will be a riot of purple in a week or two's time.

Then it was back to our cars by the church.

A lovely day for a lovely spring walk. I'm sure it will be greatly enjoyed next month in the Walking Festival. See more details from the programme and book here (if it's still not sold out). Thank-you Joyce for leading us round to the rest for the company.

You can find more details of our route here on MapMyWalk (with a GPX file you can download here) and more of my photos here on Flickr.