A Wander at Walton...

Remember that book of Essex walks I mentioned? Well we jumped into the car on Sunday to go and do another one - a bit more distant this time - at Walton on The Naze on the coast.For me this was a bit of a return to childhood as Auntie D & Uncle B used to take me there when I was small - we went to all manner of places along that stretch of coast...

We'd originally intended to do a circuit of about 4 miles - our plan is to build up the distances gradually ahead of going to the Hebrides in late spring. On looking at the book though we realised that the bit we actually wanted to walk was part of an extension taking the total distance to over 6 miles instead.....hmmmmm!

Not far along the coast path we came across this fabulous cheery stripey Beach-hut..



There you go Jenni & Fay - that one is just for you! It really made me smile - how much time and love its owners have put into it, and what a fun place it must be to spend a day - in the summer with the sun shining, or perhaps in the winter with the wind howling round, sat snug inside on your deckchair with a cup of tea...I'd love a beach-hut! Oddly enough not that far from there we decided that a cup of tea was exactly what was required, so we stopped for a sit and a sup...not for long though as there was the rest of the walk waiting for us...



As we got into the first woody bit there were suddenly lots of mushrooms and general fungus around - this was one of the more colourful ones we saw...possibly edible (Larch Bolete?) but then again possibly not. We do sometimes pick 'shrooms for eating, but ONLY when we have a good identification guide with us. Anyway this time round the fungus was safe - we were walking not picking!



For almost the entire route of this walk you have water alongside - initially the sea, then the Stour Estuary, and finally Walton Creek...it also circles round the edge of a Nature Reserve where we were told there were Marsh Harriers - and there were, we saw two females as well as assorted ducks and geese. We also saw Cranes....but not the feathered sort - these are the ones that work loading and unloading the huge container ships at Harwich and Felixstowe. We saw a number of those ships coming and going as well - even on a Sunday the work at the docks doesn't stop. At about that stage we realised that we'd dawdled a bit more than we should have done, and that we only had about another hour and a half of daylight so some stride-lengthening went on...well, until we found something else to look at anyway! One thing well worth looking at was the fabulous sunset...which just got better and better, and just kept stopping us in our tracks! Fortunately (!) the camera battery died just after this final shot was taken....a good thing too as it was just about dark by the time we got back to the car!



I wonder where we'll walk this weekend?!

Robyn