Thick fog this morning. We got tickets for the 10:15 boat to St Martin’s. We’d booked a 1pm seal snorkelling trip from St Martin’s. While drinking a coffee on the quay waiting to board the ferry R received a text message from Viv at Scilly Seal Snorkelling saying they may not be able to run … Read more “Wednesday: Snorkelling with seals”
We walked down to the quay for 9:30 to see where today’s wildlife guided tour would be. Turned out there wasn’t one today, so we booked onto a boat trip around the Norrad (Northward) islands to look at seabirds, as the boat would drop us at Bryher afterwards. The boat didn’t leave until 11:15, so … Read more “Tuesday: Bryher”
We took sandwiches and R’s snorkelling gear and got on the 10:15 ferry to St Agnes. It was almost full. We landed at St Agnes. St Agnes is connected to Gugh by a sand bar that is exposed at low tide. The ferryman told us that the tide would cover it at 14:30, so we … Read more “Monday: St Agnes and Gugh”
We caught the 10:15 ferry to Tresco from the Quay in Hugh Town. The ferry dropped us at Carn Near at the southern point of Tresco. We walked up past the famous Abbey Gardens around the Great Pool (shelduck, coots, little grebes, Canada geese, heron, a confiding song thrush) to New Grimsby. Then across to … Read more “Sunday: Tresco”
The weather forecast predicted rain all day, so our initial plan of circumnavigating St Mary’s was aborted in favour of a shorter walk up the west coast. We climbed up to Harry’s Walls Battery, some kind of defensive rampart against the French, the construction of which was never completed. Further on we got to the … Read more “Saturday: St Mary’s”
We got on the 10:45 flight from Exeter airport to St Mary’s. The flight took about an hour. The weather was good so we had good views all the way. At one point we could see most of Dartmoor: On arrival a shuttle bus took us from the airport to our accommodation. We couldn’t get … Read more “Friday: fly to Isles of Scilly”
Yesterday evening we arrived at the NoBody Inn at Doddiscombsleigh. A poky room but nice pub and garden with good beer, good food and an interesting wine list. Today, Thursday, we drove 10 minutes to Steps Bridge and parked in the car park there. We walked along the side of the River Teign for the … Read more “Thursday: Dartmoor walk”
We went to Cley Marshes Norfolk Wildlife Trust reserve. A bright but windy day. We heard pinging calls and watched bearded tits for a while, flitting about above the reeds. We walked down to the shingle beach. In the distance the wind turbines showed the curvature of the earth, the distant turbines being much shorter … Read more “Thursday: Cley Marshes, Wells walk”
Rain forecast all day. Last breakfast at the White Horse, looking out over the rainy saltmarsh. We drove half an hour through rural Norfolk, listening to Harry Cox in the car, to Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse, near Dereham. We spent a couple of hours looking around the workhouse, where there were exhibits detailing workhouse life. … Read more “Wednesday: Gressenhall Farm and Workhouse, Wells”
After breakfast R went to Titchwell and J stayed at the Inn and played fiddle and went for a walk. At Titchwell there were lots of waders on the shore: sanderlings, knot, turnstones, oystercatchers. A male hen harrier appeared, flying low over the fields in the distance. Pinging calls from some reeds, and then good … Read more “Tuesday: Bearded Titchwell”