Ipswich; Monday, 12 July, 2021

I had another early start as I wanted to head back out to the coast and the pretty Suffolk seaside town of Southwold, and getting there isn’t the easiest of tasks. First leg was to get over to the station and take the train North up to Lowestoft, which in itself took nearly 90 minutes. I could call it déjà vu, but the sense of having been here before was because I had been here before barely two weeks previously coming in from Norwich. Not even the weather had changed.

From Lowestoft station I walked the short distance to the bus station and picked up the costal clipper bus – as it’s branded – for the 50 minute journey back South to Southwold.

The bus stop is located at the back of town, so it’s a good 10 minute walk to get down to the seafront and another 5 or so to get down onto the pier, which is where I headed to first. The pier is a bonsai version of the typical seaside pleasure pier with a couple of small kiosk shops, a hall of mirrors and some arcade games – but the real reason for coming down the pier are the excellent views back onto the town and cliffs that can be seen from the end of the pier.

From the pier I wandered south down the beach, pausing at a little café for a spot of lunch, and then continuing on down into the dunes at the southern end of the town. Here the sea, the beach, the fens and the River Blyth all start to merge into one another. I wandered up through the dunes to the harbour and then picked up the small ferry that crosses the river over to Walberswick on the opposite bank. Normally the ferry is operated by row boats, and forms part of a circular walk that crosses over by the ferry and then crosses back using a bridge that used to be part of the Southwold railway. However, due to the need to carry out repairs the bridge was closed, and with the next crossing being 8 miles further upstream, the ferry had swapped out their rowboats for engines and were running a turn up and go service.

It did also mean that once you’ve taken in the pretty village of Walberswick the option to continue the circular walk and head back into Southwold isn’t an option, so instead it was back onto the ferry over to the Southwold bank and then a walk through the reed fields back into the town centre.

I had a bit of a wander around the town, but once again, like Aldeburgh, I was having to keep an eye on the clock as the last bus of the afternoon back to Lowestoft was fast approaching and I didn’t want to miss it as it would once again be a very expensive taxi ride.

I caught the bus back up through the villages on this part of the coast and into Lowestoft, where I was able to stop for a quick coffee as the bus timing meant I missed the train by about 3 minutes, so had nearly an hour to kill.

By the time the train finally pulled back into Ipswich it was already long gone 8pm so I stopped off at a small convenience store and brought some snack food to take back to my hotel room, have a quick in-room picnic and then turn in for the night.