A beautiful coastal walk gives you the chance to see stretches of stunning shoreline – and ends in a town with a cosy pub. The Blakeney Point wildlife walk is a four-mile trail in Norfolk that takes you through a nature reserve that’s home to one of the biggest seal colonies in the UK.
The picturesque walk, estimated to take around three hours, starts at Cley Beach, Norfolk Wildlife Trust car park, and heads westward down the shore. It continues past The Watch House, a quaint Victorian building once used for spotting smugglers and sailors facing difficulty at sea that’s now used as holiday accommodation.
Around two miles walk along the coast from the car park, there’s a left turn at some grassy dunes before you pass the pretty blue Old Lifeboat House. After that, you go onto a boardwalk from which you may be able to see seals at certain times in the year as you approach the end of the first half of the trail.
However, it’s important to follow guidance and signage about keeping a safe distance and keeping dogs on a tight leash, reports The Independent. The trail was named among its list of the best UK pub walks to complete this autumn.
The rest of the route is simply going back the way you came to Cley next the Sea. And if you’ve worked up a thirst for a refreshing beverage, you can pop into the cosy George & Dragon, a four-star hotel and pub built in a former farmhouse.
The local institution, which is on a site that’s said to have been a pub since 1808, is just a 22-minute walk or short drive from the car park.
The Woodland Trust flags the trail as a moderately difficult walk and notes that much of it is on soft shingle, which can be difficult to walk on, and it isn’t suitable for pushchairs.
“This route is possible at all states of the tide, except during extreme weather, but is an easier walk at low tide,” it explains.
“Important areas for breeding seals are fenced off and access is restricted, which includes much of the western end of the Point. Please follow on-site signage.”
The organisation cautions visitors that Blakeney Point is “an important area for breeding wildlife” and asks that people “obey all signs and do not cross any fence lines”.
“Some the birds are protected and it is a prosecutable offence to disturb them. It is not possible to see the seal colony on Blakeney Point on foot outside of the pupping and breeding season (between late October and mid-January),” it explains.
People hoping to see the seals during the spring and summer can do so by taking a boat from Morston Quay.