Reinterred: Felixstowe Sunrise Walk

A regular for this time of year, today was the day for our Felixstowe Sunrise Walk. It was led by Roland and he picked the date well, as we got excellent weather.

Here is the invite from Joyce.

"Wednesday Feb 4th. Felixstowe sunrise walk led by Roland. The sunrise is due at 7.32am that day, please contact him to be included in his mailing list for more information. If weather is poor then he will walk on 5th or 6th or give those interested the option of walking later on in the day. The walk is about 10 miles and starts at Felixstowe Ferry with a break for refreshments en route to Landguard. Then a return walk to cars at the Ferry."

This was my route which differed slightly from the rest of the group when I had a detour on the way back, not walk ing along the sand and shingle again with the others.

Here are a few of my photos.

Dawna nd I arrived in good time preceded only by Mike.

We enjoyd the colours of the pre-dawn.

The others arrived just a few minutes before sunrise.

Despite the clouds on teh horizon we got a great show.

The seawall path was rather puddly but we managed to avoid getting our feet wet.

I likd the reflections of the clouds here....

...and these seabirds at the water's edge.

The martello tower on the golfcourse.

We headed for the beach huts.

I think we had definitely seized the day today!

A short excursion along the sand and shingle was possible as the tide was still quite far out.

We passed the pier...

..and the new cafe at Martello Park. We haven't been to it yet.

Martello Tower P is now a National Coastwath Institution lookout (read about it here).

We followed the path through the Languard Nature Reserve past the port.

The Viewpoint Cafe here was our destination for breakfast.

At the berth next door the container ship One Integrity was just leaving and we were able to watch it go. The departure details on the port website said...

We had 2 tables in the cafe.

ONE INTEGRITY (IMO 9933119) is a Container/Post Suezmax vessel built in 2023 and is sailing under the flag of Liberia. She has an overall length (LOA) of 399 meters and a width (beam) of 61 meters. Her summer deadweight capacity is 225,219 tonnes. You can read more about it here.

It wasn't long before it was out at sea.

On our way back along the shore side of the Nature Reserve.

The promenade here was covered in shingle that had blown ashore in the winter storms.

These birds were perched on the railing on the pier.

We came across a lot of this.

It is apparently the egg cases of the common whelk (see here).

Part of teh sea defences at Cobbold Point.

After I climbed up and down again while the others retraced their steps along the beach (I thought they had climbed the steps, but they hadn't!), I ended up some way behind, but I eventually caught up.