Blakeney to Wells-next-the-Sea 19th September 2020
Today is anticipated to be a shorter walk – a sort of rest day. We have a more relaxed start to the day and arrive at Wells-next-the-Sea about 1pm. We stick the car away up a small road out of town and catch the Coastal Hopper (CH1) bus at 1.30pm and arrive at Blakeney by 1.50pm.
Down at the quay three little boys in wetsuits are emulating the two little girls of the previous evening, playing in the shallow waters of the creek, although this time supervised by an adult.
Blakeney
The day is sunny and the wind is still blowing from the east. We quickly get into a good fast marching rhythm towards Wells, along the Norfolk Coast Path, with not an ounce of ill feeling in our legs. We are obviously well broken in by now. I pause occasionally to collect the seeds of grasses and other common plants from the side of the path, for a meadow reseeding project I’m managing at a nature reserve close to my home in East Sussex.
It is a Saturday and noticeably busier than yesterday, with perhaps two or three people passing us every minute (coming towards us). At Morston the Watchtower Café is doing a brisk trade selling drinks and snacks to visitors scattered around outside at picnic tables and a rather charming pair of benches carved into the shapes of seals. I suspect most of those patronising the Watchtower have booked seats on one of the numerous seal-watching excursions that run out of the village’s tiny harbour.
Watchtower Café
The boat operators run up to 3 trips each day from April through to November, although I am intrigued that tickets are booked at Blakeney Quay, but the boat departs from Morston Quay a good 1.5 miles away. It makes for a nice walk before and after the boat trip, but I suspect most of the British public choose to drive from Blakeney.
Still on the lookout for meadow species for my grassland seeding project, I am unsurprisingly thwarted. Most of the plants encountered here are salt tolerant seaside species such as sow thistle, plantains, hawkbits, sea spurey, gorse and brome grass.
Gorse.
At Frensham Creek we decide to stop for lunch after a mere 2.4 miles of walking, but we can’t ignore stomachs demanding we attend to their needs. This is a very pleasant spot and offers a tuffet of appropriate height for sitting on. The wind is blowing through the rigging of a few small dinghies beached above the receding tide.
Lunch time and Noah’s Ark
However one vessel in particular catches our attention – Noah’s Ark. I say Noah’s Ark, but I suspect it is not actually the orginal, any more than the Golden Hind spotted last year at Brixham was. But this odd looking boat rests some distance off in the middle of the North Norfolk salt marsh (as opposed to Mount Ararat). We suspect it is a go-nowhere vessel – a house boat – sitting quietly on the mud, save for the twice daily rise and fall with the tidal cycle. I wonder if it was built in-situ, or perhaps it was towed there ready-made. We have spotted quite a few such house-boats and I am intrigued to know what legal and logistical issues surround their existence.
Our deliberations regarding Noah’s Ark are interrupted by the appearance of a young and very springy spaniel, which dashes to the creek and jumps in. Our first reaction is to reach protectively for our sandwiches, since we have encountered the canine appetite several times in the past.
However this one is more interested in assuaging its thirst, as it laps up some water. Perhaps it just needed a bit of salt? Its immediate physiological needs satisfied it turns and dashes off in the direction of its master voice.
The last high tide must have covered the Norfolk Coast Path here overnight, with large wet puddles and flotsam everywhere. We are fortunate, since had it been six hours later our passage along the coast path would have not been possible.
Flotsam deposited on the coast path and Betty indicates the height of the tide 6 hours earlier
The turf covered tuffet we are sitting on illustrates the changing nature of the sedimentation on the North Norfolk Coast. A thin horizon of shelly fragments suggests a former storm event or excessively high tide. Shells were probably ripped from the lower shore by waves, which then carried them several hundred yards inland and deposited them on the mud which had accumulated here. These in turn would have been covered by later mud deposits, on top of which the current turf has grown.
The coast path is much quieter from now on, although at Stiffkey Greens we can see a few people walking the footpath down to the beach at West Sands. The presence of a public right of way or public footpath suggests that over centuries past, locals must have followed this particular route down to the beach, not to sunbathe, but probably to dig bait, collect shellfish, seaweed or other materials needed on a daily basis.
A serious hiker passes, going in the opposite direction to us. Serious in that he carries a very large back-pack. Perhaps he is doing the Norfolk Coast Path in full. We don’t mind – the hare may get there first but these tortoises continue to plod along.
At home I have a book published in 1953 – “The Sea Coast” by J.A.Steers (Collins New Naturalist Series). He goes into some detail about the North Norfolk coast we are walking at present. Of course the coast has changed significantly over the last 67 years, but the processes are much the same. What he doesn’t mention of course is the impact of sea level rising. I suspect the equivalent book in another 67 years will show where we are walking at present to be permanently covered by sea.
A windbreak of sycamore trees, perhaps 15 to 20-year, has been planted to protect a small caravan park from the worst of the wind. Further west they are perhaps 100 years old, doubtless planted to protect something other than caravans, which would have been a rare sight at the time. Sycamore is a very resilient tree species, especially in coastal areas. In the 1980s I attended a course run by the late Alan Mitchell – one of those gurus whose words of wisdom rests with you for life. At a time when sycamore was being written-off by the conservation fraternity as a nasty invasive foreign species (only arrived in the UK perhaps 800 years ago), he sang its praises as a tree blessed with great salt tolerance.
West of the car park at Stiffkey the Norfolk Coast Path follows the top of the sea wall, giving us excellent views across the saltmarsh and the sandy beach beyond. The sea is a good mile away from us, so it must race in once the tide turns.
Saltmarsh stretching as far as the eye can see.
It is noteworthy that a large bushy perennial called Shrubby Seablight is limited to a very thin zone just above the salt-marsh proper. Here the sea rarely inundates, other than at high spring tides – such as at present. This is evidently a species that can tolerate a limited amount of salt water around its roots, but not regular submersion in it. Different species exhibit different adaptations to help cope with the physiological drought caused by an absence of freshwater. Some have waxy or rolled leaves to reduce water loss from evaporation by sea breezes; others can store freshwater after a rainstorms, a bit like desert cacti; whilst others have ways of tolerating some degree of water salinity. This gives each its own position on the sea shore.
A narrow band of Shrubby Seablight is confined to extreme high water.
Above the Shrubby Seablight non-saltmarsh plants predominate. A narrow stretch of hay meadow exists in a narrow zone between the salt marsh and the arable fields inland. I don’t know if this has any value for feeding livestock, or whether it is grown as a crop for the benefit of wild geese that abound. Just as I’m contemplating this, two caricature bird-spotters come into view dressed in the appropriate uniform and brandishing telescopes and binoculars. I put my question to them, thinking they might be some sort of experts on the matter, but I quickly realise they are more fans than professionals. They, like their footballing equivalents, are just dressed in replicas of the shirts worn by their idols.
As I’m chatting, I notice one of them is eying-up my bag of collected grass seeds. He probably thinks I am some sort of ecological thief, so I quickly explain my purpose – collecting them as part of a conservation project. I don’t think he is convinced.
I do get some information from them, however. It seems the whole of the saltmarsh hereabouts is managed by the Holkham Estate as a National Nature Reserve. They are probably doing quite well by it, getting payments from the EU to keep it as saltmarsh (I suspect they have little choice since it is good for little else), but they also are allowed to run shoots, which I’m sure they are well paid for by those strangest of conservationists – wildfowlers. You know – people who look after the wildlife so that they can fill it full of lead!
Hay meadow above the extreme high tide level
This year has been a surprisingly good one for the berry harvest and the North Norfolk Coast is no exception, including Rosehip, Blackberry, Hawthorn and Ivy.
Ivy
As we approach Wells-next-the-Sea the scene appears to replicate yesterdays at Blakeney – boats high and dry in the mud, fishermen digging for bait and people splodging around in the mud just for fun.
Low water at Wells – boats, tourists and bait diggers
Boats and lobster pots
This end of Wells is dominated by yacht moorings, repair yards, storage huts and other marine industrial facilities.
I take a couple of particularly poignant photos which sum up the dominant issues of the time. One is of gates and doorways fitted with brackets, into which flood defences are inserted as spring tides inch higher and higher. The other is representative of the current pandemic – a discarded ‘covid-mask’ snagged on a Shrubby Seablight bush.
Covid mask caught in shrubby sea blite and sea defences at doorways.
With 9.5 miles behind us, we relax on a bench and enjoy the late evening sun.
However, these are the times when one can make the most significant of mistakes – nothing life threatening, but I am relieved to return a few minutes later to recover my notebook, left on our seaside bench. It represents several days of observations and would have been sorely missed!