Twilight

Two lost boats

Found looking a bit sad on the marsh lands around Blakeney.

Seals on Blakeney Point

One of the "things to do" at Blakeney is to go on one of the many trips out to Blakeney Point to do a bit of seal and bird watching.

Actually the tourists boats no longer go from Blakeney since it silted up and you must now walk the mile or so along the coastal path to Morston where the boats come and go like buses along Oxford Street.

There really was rather a lot of them, every five minutes another pop-popping along, packed with camera toting day trippers like, er, me. Most also stop on the point so you can go for a short walk over the sand dunes to see the old lifeboat station.

I did wonder what the impact of this stream of interruptions would have on the population there. I had a look on Google maps and you can actually see the seals as short line dotted along the beach in this photo below or by clicking on this link.

There seemed a lot more then. Maybe they don't welcome being continually interrupted as they doze or go about their daily activities.

I think the best thing is to let them all in peace.... just after I take one last pic!

The Cockle

Amongst all the many boats of Blakeney the one that caught my eye was the Cockle. I'm not sure if it should be called the Cockle or the rather wonderful sounding Stiffkey Cockle as per this site, but either way it looked a lovely craft.

While the modern made versions are made of simulated clinker they remain faithful to the old design, one that no doubt has enjoyed decades of pottering around the waters off Blakeney.

What was particularly impressive were the shear numbers in moorings in every creek:

And there were more out on the waters, having fun:

If I lived up at Blakeney it's just the sort of boat that I'd be tempted by.

Blakeney

This is the view from the Blakeney Hotel (highly recommended), taken very early in the morning of what promised to be a lovely day - though of course there is the saying "Red sky in the morning, shepherd's warning."

Fortunately was able to get back to sleep and later the village was a bit more awake, including these brave swimmers and many boats small enough to get up the silted up creek.

The silt ended Blakeney's long history as a commercial port, where it and prospered from exporting the rich agricultural products of Norfolk. Plus, according to Wikipedia, undertaking a bit of piracy.

Now Blakeney, along with the villages along Norfolk's north coast, are much quieter, apart from the influx of tourists. But it is a very pretty corner of England, where property prices are no doubt extortionately high and locals are priced out by weekending Londoners.

You can see why: attractive unspoilt villages, pebble built houses with buckets of character, lots of places to row, kayak and sail, and lovely walks enjoying under skys that really do seem bigger.

Alas even here you can not escape the British weather, and while enjoying a nice morning walk within minutes of this photo we were drenched by a squall.

What was that about shepherd's warning?

Catching up with Keep Turning Left

I've been meaning to catch up with Dylan Winter's videos of him on his voyage around Britain in a little boat he calls the slug in which he keeps turning left.

Though I've been getting the odd YouTube subscription email and though always enjoy the vids, had to a degree lost track of how far he'd got. But this afternoon there was not just one but five that I had to watch without delay.

Because Dylan's latest (first to be found here) are from the Norfolk Broads round to Blakeney. And it just happens that this weekend was at a family get-together - yup, in Blakeney.

The picture above is of Blakeney itself with hotel on left and creek centre stage. More photos to come but now I've got to search through the pics, looking in the background for Dylan's slug......