Introduction


When we started walking the coast of England we had no intention that this would become a major lifetime project. Having to make a last-minute arrangement for our summer holiday in 1987, we said "Let's go to the nearest piece of coast and see how far we can walk along it." It turned out well and we started adding further stretches of coast, initially once every two years, but soon annually, or even twice a year.

We had always enjoyed the coast - there is something refreshingly "edgy" about having the sea always at our side, and one of us was into marine molluscs. We also enjoyed long-distance walking and had long been involved in general natural history recording. This project enabled us to combine all three interests.

You soon discover when embarking on a project like this that you need a few rules, which evolve from the first experiences. Our main rule was that we should walk as close to the coast as possible, which meant beach-walking whenever we could (unlike the official coast paths that largely remain above shore, recognising that at high tides the beach may be inaccessible). The route should also be capable of being a continuous walk, so that when we came to an unfordable river we walked inland along its banks to the first place at which we could cross, whether a bridge or a ferry.

We only carried light packs, so that at the end of each day's walk we had the problem of getting back to our car where we started. Initially we walked back, but soon realised we would be walking the coast twice this way! We used public transport whenever this was available - buses or trains, sometimes adjusting our start and finish points to make this easier. Failing this - and it was often not possible - we would phone for a taxi (an increasingly costly option over the years). Having our car with us gave us more freedom as to where we could stay at night - and after a day walking and only light food we were usually ready for being spoiled by a good meal and a comfortable bed! Even so, we stayed on the coast itself whenever there was a decent option.

Each walk was made for enjoyment, it was not a route-march to see how quickly we could get it finished. We therefore took it gently at times when passing through pleasant scenery or where there were many plants or creatures to record.

In terms of biological recording, we systematically noted every bird, butterfly, creature or sea-shell that we came across, sometimes spending time searching for the shells. We could not record every plant in the same way - there are too many common ones - so we were more selective, noting all coastal plants and any others that were not run-of-the-mill.

In our daily posts, edited from our original diaries, we include a star-rating from no star to **** according to our subjective estimate as to how special that day was from the point of view of natural history. This score (and our daily records) will, however, have been affected by the weather - it is difficult to appreciate the environment fully, for instance, in torrential rain, and there are many more butterflies and other insects to be seen in warm sunshine!

A summary of all our natural history records on the walk can be found using this link: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B1LLGD55lKRHYXd1SGU1QndrcUU/edit?usp=sharing





Friday, 31 January 2014

Lincolnshire: Chapel St Leonard's to Gibraltar Point 27/6/2008*

 
Ingoldmells
 
Sea heath
 
Skegness: all the fun of the fair
We parked in the long-stay car park in Chapel St. Leonard’s, not too far from the bus station, and walked straight down to the front, where a concrete embankment took us all the way to Ingoldmells Coastguard Station.  Fortunately we could not see much of the lower land inland, which was covered for miles with uniform densely-packed caravan parks and then Butlins, with their associated fast-food outlets and amusement arcades, which we passed through at the end of the day by bus.  We searched the beach at Ingoldmells for shells – a good range although not quite as diverse as yesterday.  The upper beach was marked only by occasional sea rocket and saltwort, as holidaymakers use the beaches intensively.  One short stretch with no holiday homes immediately adjacent had more sea couch and a solitary plant of sea holly.  Here we saw our first small tortoiseshell of this holiday, the only one of the day as it happened, although we did later see a few meadow browns and ringlets.  On the sea were half a dozen Mediterranean gulls.  The path by the golf course just before Skegness was fenced off, but we did manage to use it, like other people, much of the way, as it was faster to walk than the soft sand beach.  We turned into the town when we reached the pier, surrounded by discordant music and announcements from various amusement arcades and funfairs.  Among the usual stalls we found one, Angelina’s, which served us an appreciated dish of strawberries with ice cream and chocolate sauce, the day being warm and dry.  We followed this up with 2 fresh doughnuts each!  We then walked parallel to the front, but a little back, to Seacroft and called in at the Vine Hotel (Best Western) in order to book a room from Sunday.  This was situated in a quiet suburb of Skegness, well away from the noisy centre.  The road led on south past the usual golf course, populated by men in jazzy shirts, to the tip of Gibraltar Point, a nature reserve.  Here we were able to look across large lakes from bird-hides to see nesting black-headed gulls (with progeny of all sizes) and avocets, among other birds like shelduck, cormorant, and Canada and greylag geese.  From the Visitor Centre we crossed the end of the point, through saltmarsh and then a ridge of overgrown dunes with poor vegetation apart from hound’s-tongue.  We passed on to the saltmarsh on the east side, where there was an excellent short turf at the dry top (thanks to rabbits), soft and flat for walking.  Here we saw brown bent just coming into flower, and sea heath, along with sea milkwort and lesser and greater sea spurreys.  As well as the usual common sea lavender there was rock sea lavender, less common as a saltmarsh plant.  A path at this level led us all the way back almost to the centre of Skegness, with some sea-buckthorn-dominated dune ridges to the east as well, running through the saltmarsh, remains of various stages of deposition.  We took a footpath back into Seacroft and walked the quarter-mile to the main road and the bus station in order to catch a “Stagecoach” back to our starting-point.

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