Beach Huts – turnrightoutofportsmouth

Wells next the Sea, Blickley Hall and Langham Glass to see glassware being created

Our first full day on the North Norfolk coast coincided with the start of the recent beautiful weather across the UK, so we thought we’d have a nice lazy day on the beach! Although it was a bit of a trek from our campsite we chose Wells next the Sea. We set off along the coastal A149 which ran through several lovely historic villages (Weybourne, Cley next the Sea, Blakeney and Stiffkey) as we wound our way towards our destination.

On arrival we initially stopped in the town car-park, ideal for visiting the harbour or the town centre, but can also be used to visit the beach if you don’t mind either walking about a mile, or taking the little train. This car-park had fairly reasonable charges, but we continued along the beach road and found another car-park right by the beach (where the charges were considerably higher!) There are toilets here as well as a nice café and upmarket beach shop (Joules!)

We made our way onto the beach and could see lovely colourful beach huts up on stilts in the near distance. Calv refused to walk any further so we parked ourselves quite quickly. Very soon I saw a disturbance in the water Continue reading “Wells next the Sea, Blickley Hall and Langham Glass to see glassware being created”

The Suffolk seaside and a lost city

Southwold is not your normal seaside resort. Yes, it has plenty of beach huts, a boating lake, mini-golf and a pier, but there aren’t any amusement arcades or a promenade lined with pubs and cafes. What you have instead is a quaint and historic town, and a pier with rather different attractions (although there is a small amusement arcade as you enter).

The pier has a couple of classy, for a seaside pier, eateries, an attraction in the middle called ‘The Under of the Pier Show’; what this actually comprises are handmade up-to-date arcade attractions – a lot of fun and very popular and a couple of up-to-date artworks. These include a tribute to George Orwell, who lived in the town for some time, and a water clock, initially made to highlight water re-cycling. This is a lot of fun on the hour and the half hour when there is a little display involving shorts dropping and water squirting!

Southwold Pier

View from the end of the pier at Southwold

I loved the beach huts in Southwold! Continue reading “The Suffolk seaside and a lost city”

Discovering the delights of North Kent. Canterbury, Herne Bay & Whitstable

,Neither of us is actually too well this week. Calv doesn’t seem to have shifted the cold he caught whilst in Ibiza, and I have definitely now caught it.

Despite this though we have loved our time back in Kent 🙂

We didn’t book anything before arriving but had a couple of sites in mind. Arriving at the 1st, at the end of a long narrow lane, we found the site deserted and nobody around or answering the phone. As there was nothing really giving us any reason to be desperate to stay we headed back to our 2nd choice, Hampton Bay, here in Herne Bay. The SatNav took us to the wrong place (into a private housing estate with very narrow, unadopted roads – not suitable really for the van – we had already unhooked the car, luckily). So we asked a postman who pointed us in the right direction and off we set (just in the van). What a lovely find! (I will be posting a review later).

Once settled we walked back to collect the car, and ended up exploring along the Herne seafront. Debbie, I found this picture of Edmund Reid (Whitechapel) – I didn’t realise he was real!! It looks like he retired to Herne Bay 🙂

The main photo is of one of the pebble, driftwood and shell sculptures that we found further up the promenade – they were really rather lovely.

We continued up the coast towards the towers that we had seen from the main road. Continue reading “Discovering the delights of North Kent. Canterbury, Herne Bay & Whitstable”