Winchelsea Beach

We visited the Rye Harbour Nature Reserve today in East Sussex to walk along the beach and visit some bird hides that overlook the various ponds and scrapes behind the beach shingle.

Lunch was enjoyed in the rather splendid Rye Harbour Discovery Centre which is very near to the car park. The centre and the first mile were very busy, less so as we walked towards Winchelsea dodging the six huge dump trucks that were trundling back and forth moving beach deposits from Rye Harbour back to when they came from last year. They do this every year.

Plenty of birds to be seen, both waterfowl and waders. In total we saw upwards of 15 including wigeon, teal, shellducks, mallard, coot, little grebes, oystercatchers, lapwings, gulls, cormorants and a whole flock of curlews.

We were hoping to walk along the beach which is littered with abandoned sea defences such as this section which is a scene of neglected beauty. It was too expensive to maintain a stretch of several miles, now they are content with moving the beach back from where it came each winter.

The journey back was worse than the journey there. The route was full of potholes which were easier to spot in daylight, not so in the dark when even if you were driving slowly were very difficult to avoid owing to the headlights of oncoming cars.

In preparation for moving we had an appointment with remover company which proved very helpful, giving us lots of food for thought. Their quotation will give all sorts of options which will help us plan. He said it was never too soon to start planning.

The news from Sweden this morning was awful, our thoughts go out to all and especially Blipper Hanku.