I finished off the evening last night drinking bottles of Adnams Southwold bitter in the campsite bar. The drinking was interrupted after the third bottle by rain outside, which meant I had to go back and make sure the tent was fully zipped up. I then went back and consumed one more bottle.
At 8 I am up and getting ready for the next stage in fine weather, but an hour later clouds are looming. With a stash of chocolate bars from the campsite shop to keep me going, I set off along the cliff tops, and a steady, gentle rain begins to fall.
The path passes between a hedge on the edge of the cliff and back gardens to my right. Rose branches overhand garden fences along the way, bearing the plumpest rose hips I have ever seen. Plump enough, indeed, to tempt me to pick one and tentatively nibble at its outer flesh, which is sweet and rich. I loved rose hip syrup as a child (though I don’t remember trying to eat one), in those days it was given to children as a tonic for general “not feeling very well”-ness. Getting down to the inedible fluffy seeds inside, I remember kids down my street used these as itching powder.
At 8 I am up and getting ready for the next stage in fine weather, but an hour later clouds are looming. With a stash of chocolate bars from the campsite shop to keep me going, I set off along the cliff tops, and a steady, gentle rain begins to fall.
The path passes between a hedge on the edge of the cliff and back gardens to my right. Rose branches overhand garden fences along the way, bearing the plumpest rose hips I have ever seen. Plump enough, indeed, to tempt me to pick one and tentatively nibble at its outer flesh, which is sweet and rich. I loved rose hip syrup as a child (though I don’t remember trying to eat one), in those days it was given to children as a tonic for general “not feeling very well”-ness. Getting down to the inedible fluffy seeds inside, I remember kids down my street used these as itching powder.
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| Sailor's Home pub, Kessingland |
The path cuts inland and goes through an older, nicer part of Kessingland than that visited yesterday. I go past the Sailor’s Home pub which faces out onto a green where the path comes back to the sea and the Kessingland Sea Wall begins. The coast path follows the wall, with grasses and seashore plants prospering tenaciously on the flattened shingle. As you walk along the level of the shingle gradually rises until it is level with the top of the wall. Alongside the path, I go past a large hut which is the Kessingland Boatshed - “Members Only”. A big sign in the window says “Please be warned - YOU ENTER THESE PREMISES AT YOUR OWN RISK”. Memorial benches line up at the front of the shed, perhaps in remembrance of those who failed to heed the warning.
I come to a sluice at the outlet of the small Hundred River. It has now started to rain hard, and I am struggling with my map in the wet to work out where I am, which I need to know, because the path goes inland somewhere round here and I don’t want to lose the track and get lost in deteriorating weather. When asked, passers by are unhelpful and ill informed as to the Coast Path route.
I have not brought any waterproofs - in summer weather I find these just make me sweaty, uncomfortable and wet, so I prefer to let a thin layer of clothes get soaked and hope that they will dry out soon enough when the rain stops. I am pretty soaked now. A concrete path curves in across a field and I decide this is the way. It isn’t, but it does meet up with the path further on, which stretches straight inland in the direction of the village of Benacre, identifiable by its church spire, nestling towards the westward horizon in trees. To my left (south) is an area of thick woodland which surrounds the wildlife reserve of Benacre Broad.
I come to a sluice at the outlet of the small Hundred River. It has now started to rain hard, and I am struggling with my map in the wet to work out where I am, which I need to know, because the path goes inland somewhere round here and I don’t want to lose the track and get lost in deteriorating weather. When asked, passers by are unhelpful and ill informed as to the Coast Path route.
I have not brought any waterproofs - in summer weather I find these just make me sweaty, uncomfortable and wet, so I prefer to let a thin layer of clothes get soaked and hope that they will dry out soon enough when the rain stops. I am pretty soaked now. A concrete path curves in across a field and I decide this is the way. It isn’t, but it does meet up with the path further on, which stretches straight inland in the direction of the village of Benacre, identifiable by its church spire, nestling towards the westward horizon in trees. To my left (south) is an area of thick woodland which surrounds the wildlife reserve of Benacre Broad.
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| Towards Benacre |
The rain has temporarily stopped, but a stream of rainwater is still running down the concrete path towards and past me to the sea. A path with a sign pointing to Benacre Broad is also marked “NO ENTRY” and the coast path itself, according to my map, will take me on a detour inland and around the broad via country roads for three or four miles. The poor weather discourages me from leaving the assigned route. I go past farms, and alongside woods – pretty enough, but it is always either raining, or just about to. I come to a nice open field lined with blackberry bushes, and for a moment, rain having stopped and the skies appearing to brighten, I consider shedding my pack to pick some berries and take a rest, but in a few minutes the rain begins again and I think better of it. I go along a path by Holly Grove Wood, the perimeter of which is surrounded by strongly constructed wire fencing. A sign explains this is deer fencing - constructed to keep the deer from entering the wood and damaging the trees. Seems a little questionable; perhaps it’s just a ruse to keep people like me out!
Over to my left from the wooded path I can see the impressive dark ruins of the old church of Covehithe, a nearby hamlet. I wait a while in the relative shelter of the trees, but with no improvement in the weather (if anything it is coming down harder) I decide to walk on, thinking perhaps I might get a bit of shelter in the church. A pheasant dashes across the road just ahead of me. Why did the pheasant cross the road, I ask myself? Because he was a plucky fucker?
I pass a few pretty stone built houses, and enter the churchyard of St. Andrew Covehithe, hoping the church will be open. To my relief it is (to be fair, in my experience, churches in this part of the world generally are), and I rest my rucksack on a bench in the entrance, happier at being out of the rain, even if I am wet through. The church was once much bigger, but was dismantled in the 17th Century to make a smaller church against the existing west tower that would better meet the humbler puritan preferences of a diminishing parish. The ruins now surround and dwarf the remaining church.
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| Sanctuary in St Andrew, Covehithe |
Eventually tiring of my sanctuary from the weather, I set out again, and ask a man parking up in his car if he knows the walks around here. According to my map, the Coast Path cuts back inland again along country roads by a longish, circuitous route, and I want to know if I can follow instead a footpath that’s signposted from the road that appears to go towards the beach in the direction of Southwold. The man, equipped with maps and with the authoritative military air of an army officer, thinks that I can get to Southwold this way. Whilst the stretch of coast that my path has just circumnavigated is treacherous for walkers, with the risk of being cut off by the tide in front of the cliffs, the section ahead is safe enough. I take his advice, and set off along the footpath through thick ferns taking me towards the coast with Covehithe Broad emerging over to my right.
A strong wind is blowing the rain in my face as I get to the beach. Ahead I can see the orange cliffs, and a little alarmingly, the tide is quite close in to them. Is it wise to go on? My urge to explore this dramatic spot decides things. The beach if littered with the debris of trees that have fallen down from the eroding cliff tops. I can now understand why the path does not come down this way - perhaps it did once, along the cliff top, but has now worn away completely. Inadvisably I risk damage to my camera by exposing it to the wind and rain to photograph the cliff, fascinated with the tree branches, roots, and other vegetation that cling to a thin layer of topsoil that is always being undermined by the crumbling, sandy rock just below it, and which, on a windy, wet day like today, appears particularly precarious. In appearance these trees remind me of the deadly plants in the 60s sci-fi movie adaptation of John Wyndham’s Day Of The Triffids, except these move much more slowly, with a sinister animation that moves them imperceptibly on a topsoil conveyor belt towards the same tumbling, tangled termination of the dead trees on the shore.
A strong wind is blowing the rain in my face as I get to the beach. Ahead I can see the orange cliffs, and a little alarmingly, the tide is quite close in to them. Is it wise to go on? My urge to explore this dramatic spot decides things. The beach if littered with the debris of trees that have fallen down from the eroding cliff tops. I can now understand why the path does not come down this way - perhaps it did once, along the cliff top, but has now worn away completely. Inadvisably I risk damage to my camera by exposing it to the wind and rain to photograph the cliff, fascinated with the tree branches, roots, and other vegetation that cling to a thin layer of topsoil that is always being undermined by the crumbling, sandy rock just below it, and which, on a windy, wet day like today, appears particularly precarious. In appearance these trees remind me of the deadly plants in the 60s sci-fi movie adaptation of John Wyndham’s Day Of The Triffids, except these move much more slowly, with a sinister animation that moves them imperceptibly on a topsoil conveyor belt towards the same tumbling, tangled termination of the dead trees on the shore.
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| Cliffs before Southwold |
I make it to the end of the cliffs and Coverhithe Broad opens out in their place. The poor weather discourages me from lingering; in any case there is little evidence of bird activity on the broad, and the random un-degradable detritus and rubbish that has been scattered around abandoned campfires give the place a blighted, abandoned look. Getting nearer to Southwold there are more crumbling cliffs, these supporting a doomed detached house, presumably now vacated, as well as more tumbling trees.
After walking along the beach for an hour, I am comforted to see Southwold Pier and lighthouse ahead, and go up a ramp in a cliff which takes me to a road that leads into town. The rain is still coming down, not as heavy as before, but still. I go past a carousel (closed today) and some beach huts (shut too) and then past some smart bed and breakfast guest houses. How nice it would be to be staying at a place like one of these tonight, I think to myself. The presence of “NO VACANCIES” signs in each window makes that temptation irrelevant. At the top of the promenade, overlooking the pier, I come across The Sailor’s Reading Room that Sebald wrote about. Bedraggled and weary, I decide to go in and see if I can find directions to my campsite destination (it’s on Ferry Road which is long and goes in two directions). In a strange, irritated, flustered state of mind, I fail to find anything to help me, and don’t feel like asking anyone there for assistance, so I leave the place in the same sodden, unenlightened state as when I went in. Annoyingly I have allowed my phone to run out of charge, so I can’t ring the site.
Anyway, following my nose, and eventually a road sign, I get to the campsite, and in the campsite office I decide to book my pitch another night, so that tomorrow can be a day for recovery and reconnoitering. I get my instructions of where to go, and make my way to my pitch. Finding it occupied by another tent, a tedious business ensues where I have to go back to the site office and get them to sort it out with some disgruntled pitch squatters. Eventually at about 5 pm I am pitched up and, hey! It’s stopped raining.
But I can’t relax. There is nowhere on site to go, least of all my tent of course, which is tiny and only for lying down and sleeping in. So there is nothing for it but to head back into Southwold to look around, eat, and have a few beers. A reasonable plan, but this proves somehow to be an unsatisfying exercise, despite the fact that Marks Fish restaurant in town is excellent, and the Adnam’s beer in all three pubs I go to is fine as well. I can’t get rested –The day’s trek has made me curiously agitated; I feel like a wind up mechanical toy, a wind up clockwork hiker, my tin spring still partly coiled, that “must keep walking, must keep going”... In the first pub, I take a seat, have a drink, but feel restless and want to go to the next place. The same happens in the next place. Today’s efforts in the rain and wind have unsettled me; physically I’m weary and mentally I’m concerned that this trip is going to consist of more of the same discomfort and I’m questioning if it’s worth it, especially as now my camera is in a bad way after the soaking it has received, and the camera is an essential tool in recording and writing up the trip. I end up at the Harbour Inn, a lovely pub by the fascinating Southwold Quay area, with its tumbledown boatsheds and jetties. I sit outside the inn, and despite the weather being a little brighter, I am in a state unshakeable annoyance at myself, because I am not presently being able to appreciate the place that I have made this effort to get to.
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| Boat hut by Southwold Quay |
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