Today Dawn and I had our first weekday day out together since work on the kitchen replacement started. It was our one and only walk from this year's Suffolk Walking Festival - Walk No. 22 "Reedbed to Harbour along the River Blyth."
The only walks I wanted to do were sold out before I got to book them and indeed I only got to book this one after a couple of places became available. Oh dear. Whatever has happened to the Suffolk Walking Festival? Only one walk (at 7 miles) longer than this and no Challenge Walk - nothing for serious walkers... I'll say no more. Meanwhile back to today's walk.
This was the programme listing for the walk.
This was our route.
The persistent rain made keeping my camera dry quite a challenge but here are a few of my photos.
We met at the car park for the Suffolk Wildlife Trust's Hen Reedbeds Nature Reserve, where we were met by our guides Nicky, Meg and, later, Sarah.
Nicky had a rather nice map showing the river and its tributaries, one of which was the river Hen. She and Meg gave us an overview of the
Suffolk Coast Otter Project, which includes a Blyth Otter Group. The map is based on
this Environment Agency map of the main rivers of England.
We first visited the viewing platform near the car park. We liked the flag irises and ponies. The short River Hen here joins the River Wang.
Nicky explained what we could see. We caught a glimpse of a grey heron.
As the nature reserve's website says... "A rich mosaic of wonderful wetland habitat and a real treat for anyone
interested in birds Hen Reedbeds is a blend of reedbeds, fens, dykes and
pools created in 1999 to provide new breeding habitat for bittern and
other wildlife. In summer look out for bittern, marsh harrier, heron,
bearded tit, Norfolk hawker and even hobby hunting over the reeds and
dykes. Reed and sedge warblers sing to their hearts’ content alongside
clouds of iridescent damselfly and nimble dragonfly such as the
four-spot chaser and hairy dragonfly." It was a bit early and not the weather for the clouds of insects.
We crossed the road to walk along the bank of the river Wang.
We got splendid views across the Blyth estuary.
There were plenty of signs of otters (known as spraints).
We got some respite from the rain in the John Minihane hide. We could see Quay House to the East.
Here Nicky showed us more about the otters include samples taken from spraints that show what they had been eating.
Back in the rain we continued along the river bank with views across the estuary...
...and across the river to Walberwick church.
Further on we passed
Blackshore Mill on Reydon marshes, with Southwold behind.
We reached the Bailey Bridge that crosses the river. It had been closed for quite a while but reopened last year.
We were at the top end of Southwold Harbour.
We didn't like to ask the Harbour Inn if we could eat our packed lunches in the bar, so instead sheltered at the front of the Sailing Club.
A boat docked opposite us.
We were next to the fish shack, but didn't buy anything.
We returned to the bailey bridge and turned north-east across Woodsend Marshes before turning left across the edge of Southwold Common and following a lovely path along the trees.
We saw some foxgloves here.
We crossed a creek behind Quay House....
...and were soon at Old Hall café, our drinks and toilets stop.
It has lovely views. Unsurprisingly no-one was sat outside.
There are a couple of waymarked paths that start from here. We were following part of the yellow one now back to the edge of the nature reserve.
By the side of the path we came across a female wheatear perched on a fence post. She hopped from one to the next in front of us for a while.
The damp had got into my camera now.
It gave me this view of Walberswick church one more.
We were soon back at the car park.
Thank you Nicky, Meg and Sarah for leading us through the rain on a lovely route. Definitely one to come and do again when the weather is kinder.
You can more details of our (maybe) 6.5 mile route (I think the GPS signal had me moving about while we were sat in the café) here on MapMyWalk (or download a GPX file here), and more of my rain-affected photos here on Flickr.
Related walks you can find on my blog include:
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