We had a nice lay in this morning, and a quick look out of the window showed that it was going to be another beautiful day – the sun was shining and the sky was a lovely blue with hardly any clouds. Last night we stepped outside the van to look at the night sky and I’ve never seen so many stars. Where we live, there is so much light pollution that we don’t see that many stars even on the clearest of nights, but here in Dunwich it’s very remote so there’s hardly any light pollution.
This morning we set off for the RSPB reserve at Minsmere, walking along the shingle beach. It was lovely walking along the deserted beach in the sunshine, but it was quite hard work too. When we reached the reserve we made our way to the visitor centre to pay the entrance fee and then had a well deserved coffee and a slice of cake.
There are two circuits around the site, so we did the first one, stopping off at the different hides along the way. There were lots of twitchers in the hides, with some very expensive looking binoculars and camera equipment. From one of the hides we saw a couple of what we think were herons taking off, and the twitchers were getting excited by four marsh harriers in the distance.
With the first circuit complete we had lunch at the visitor centre, and then we took off on the second circuit, again stopping off at some of the hides along the way. Minsmere is a lovely place to spend the day. It’s not that cheap (£9 each) but well worth the money as it’s a big site and well maintained, and we did see lots of different birds.
We came back to the campsite walking along Dunwich Heath rather than walking along the beach. According to Carol’s pedometer we walked some 17,000 steps or 8.5 miles. It’s now late afternoon, so it’s time for me to start cooking a paella for dinner, and then we’ll probably spend the evening playing Upwords or Boggle.
Mike