Norfolk: Happisburgh to Winterton-on-Sea 10/9/2008**

 

Wreck of Happisburgh sea defences   Small tortoiseshell   Hawkweed oxtongue

We parked by the large church at Happisburgh, out of proportion to the size of the village, as many of the churches around here are – the one at Walcott just before looked like a cathedral, and Winterton’s was tall enough to provide a destination landmark for most of our walk today.  We walked back to the scaffolding ladder we ascended yesterday and regained the beach.  As we walked south the erosion of the cliffs was evident with tangled metal and parts of buildings littering the cliff and beach, along with broken-down sea-defences.  The old groynes again provided a holdfast for common limpets and edible mussels, although the beach rarely showed any shells.  Rows of wooden posts in the sea were topped by common terns in both summer and winter (or juvenile) plumage.  We walked past Eccles on Sea without seeing it, before the cliffs ended and a narrow line of dunes began.  We continued on the beach with sea rocket and saltwort occasionally at the top, to Sea Palling, where a road came down.  There was a prominent lifeguard presence and a few holidaymakers on the sand.  Lines of rock placed out at sea created a scalloped coastline that increased the walking distance if one wanted to keep to the firm moist sand beside the sea.  At one small spot we found a number of small shells that provided almost the whole tally for the day.  Shortly afterwards we climbed up into the marram dunes to have our lunch and then continued narrow paths along the dune’s crest.  On this largely sunny day there were swarms of small tortoiseshells and small whites here, along with some small coppers and large whites.  One of the dominant flowers, although now mostly in seed, was hawkweed oxtongue; there was plenty of sea bindweed and some sea holly.  We looked down inland over Waxham with its old church and huge restored tythe barn, then a caravan park whose inhabitants had denuded the dune paths into loose sand more difficult to walk, and later the car park at the end of the track from Horsey.  From here the dunes widened into the Horsey-Winterton system and gained a few more interesting flowers, such as grey hair-grass, blue fleabane and sheepsbit.  Kestrels hunted the banks.  We came down to the track inland of the dunes for firmer walking and arrived at the Winterton Dunes nature reserve.  The dunes here were acid and covered mainly in heather and cross-leaved heath and depressions contained creeping willow, royal fern and narrow buckler fern.  Barer areas often contained clumps of the distinctive grey hair-grass, with its glaucous leaves and pink sheaths.  Many common and ruddy darters were flying around – one of the latter perched on the arm of Tony’s T-shirt for half an hour!  There were also migrant hawkers.  There was too little time to explore fully, unfortunately, as we had to cross the dunes to reach the village and find a taxi.  We phoned a local firm (Viking) advertised in a chip-shop window and he arrived in 5 minutes to take us back.

Groyne with limpets and barnacles   Narrow buckler fern & creeping willow   Ruddy darter