Saturday 2 August 2008

Walberswick and Dunwich


Yesterday we took Nick and Dan to the Suffolk coast for the day. We offered them the choice of location; Norfolk, Lincolnshire or Suffolk, which are all about two hours away, and they chose the latter, specifically the World Crab-Fishing Championship site at Walberswick. This little town lies across the estuary from Southwold, where Gordon Brown, the Prime Minister is on holiday. The locals had put up banners saying "GORD HELP US". It was great fun as we are all equally enthusiastic about the crab-fishing ritual. You have to go to a little shed-boutique near the beach and get your kit. This comprises of a bucket, handline, net and bait. The best bait is bacon because it's smelly and tough. We don't use hooks because the crabs just hang on while you gently bring them to the net. We let them go afterwards, of course.


After crab-fishing the ritual demands that we go across the saltmarsh to the main beach for a session of beach-combing. Hanna loves to look for amber and pebbles, Nick looks for shells, I look for birds and Dan likes to dig. We all had success. Dan indicates when he has had enough by doing his R2D2 act, setting off across the dunes in search of ice-cream. He knows the way instinctively. We ended up in a nice cafe having tea and cakes, then moved on to Dunwich for a more pebbly beach where we stayed until late, watching the sunset.


We would love to take a longer break there, but Nick is off to the USA on Monday and its a bit of a haul without help. What a day though! There are more pictures at http://s255.photobucket.com/albums/hh129/jimstevenson2/Walberswick/

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