Norfolk: Winterton to Great Yarmouth 17/6/2009****

 

Crested buckler fern	Having arrived the previous afternoon we had time to explore Winterton dunes again and found the crested buckler fern we failed to find in 2008.  There were also the coastal micro-moth Gymnancyla canella and stripe-winged grasshoppers.  We saw a grey seal lift its head above the sea and look around for some minutes.  We are staying at a B&B (Tower Cottage) opposite the church in Winterton, which has a tall square tower with much wallflower and nesting pigeons and jackdaws.  After a fine breakfast, we walked down the road towards the coast.  At the main green where there were, unusually, two village signs, one representing farming, the other fishing.  We found a queue at the bus-stop and realised it would be simpler and cheaper to take a bus into Great Yarmouth centre and walk back.  The bus-ride took 40 minutes to get to Market Gates, from which we walked to the bank of the River Yare, just below the road bridge.  We followed the river south, on its east bank, as it runs parallel to the coast here, although we hardly got any view of the river with docks and industrial premises between it and the road.  We passed the ferry across the river and carried on, mainly recording wasteland plants, such as garden pink-sorrel to the end of the peninsula where the Yare turns east to enter the North Sea.  Here we found dune plants starting to come in, but as we continued north beside the coast the whole dunes had become a construction site.  Not until close to the centre of Yarmouth could we go down to the beach.  Even the spoiled dunes here, however, had plenty of sea holly, but the beach was devoid of shells.  We passed a fairground, where rides circled empty of customers, although eventually a couple did get on the “Yarmouth Eye”.  After the first pier we continued along the paved way above the beach and past the second pier, calling in at the Information Centre, and then through wider northern dunes, which again had sea holly, fronted by some sea rocket and saltwort, plus colonies of the alien Hieracium lanatum, the only site where it seems to have become established (for well over a century).  All the dunes along this stretch are acidic, with sheepsbit and sheep’s sorrel common and much grey hair-grass in worn patches.  At the end of the town we entered the gardens surrounding a boating lake, where there was a seat among the shrubbery convenient for lunch.  We then walked dwindling dunes and beach (sand and shingle) below Caister where there are remains of the old Roman fort we had glimpsed from the bus, and the water-tower provided a conspicuous landmark.  We joined a path above the beach along a discontinued railway line for a while, before returning to the beach.  There was a lot of common cudweed.  We continued under the crumbling low cliffs at Scratby, with the Scroby Wind Farm out at sea.  Incredibly, one can get boat trips round the wind farm and buy postcards of it – how sad is that?  Near Hemsby we saw Arctic terns fishing with their young, already fledged.  A few shells started appearing, mostly fragments, until there were large numbers of beached razor shells, the recently introduced species Ensis americanus.  At Winterton we were disappointed that the café above the beach was closed, having looked forward to ice-cream or coffee.  It was only a short walk back from here to the B&B and the Fisherman's Return with Woodforde’s beer, locally-brewed at Woodbastwick.		Migrant hawker
Access to the beach after the harbour works, Great Yarmouth south   Approaching Caister   Wind farm postcard: calm sea, huge breakers!		Lunch-place by boating lake, Great Yarmouth north   Scratby cliffs   Ensis americanus