Thursday 22 January 2015

Sand Bay Circular Coastal Walk.


At the risk of alienating any motorhome or 4 wheel camping fans, sorry, todays blog is about walking again! In the words of Diana Ross...." I'm still waiting..."

Our new IH fun bundle, is on order and we wait with anticipation till D Day, for us  March 1st. Hopefully we will then be back to 4Wheel Camping, with a bit of walking and biking thrown in!

In the depths of winter, we thought we had better get out and about, this walk appealed!

Sand Point Circular Walk.

At the risk of sounding really boring we did do this walk twice, two weeks running. On the first attempt we actually bumped into Den's work colleague Pete and his wife Lesley when I stopped to ask directions. How spooky is that, in the middle of nowhere! Even spookier, I shared the same name as Pete's wife, the first time I have ever met another Lesley. We enjoyed the rest of the walk with cheerful company.

The following weekend we decided to take the map, a picnic and do it all again. It was a beautiful morning warm, sunny and cold but not windy. Sand Point is north of Weston Super Mare on the coastal road and the car park was busy!!! Two tries and we found the 1st point on the walk at the rear of the car park. The beach was lovely but we headed towards the headland and up the very steep steps.



The climb to the top was hard going but well worth the effort, we were glad we had taken walking poles, boots are a must, it was very muddy.

Cold but not bitter although we were well wrapped up.



When we reached the top of the climb, we were on the headland over Sand Point with fabulous views all around and the beach below us.






Looking back towards Sand Bay and the beach, which is a dog walkers paradise.

The headline provides loads of leisure activities from seal spotting, photography, dog walking, sheep worrying, to kite flying. The kite fliers were there but we didn't actually see anyone take off as it wasn't really windy enough.It appeared half the fun was loading a heavy kite on your back, climbing the hill and then waiting for the wind which never came. A bit like wind surfing really. 



We were following the National Trust walk directions but following serious debate, they were wrong!! Eventually we decided their left turn had to be a right turn and we made our way across the field through the ruined walls built by French prisoners captured during the French Revolution Wars ( 1792 - 1802) towards the sheep fold.



There were lots of these old stone walls up on the headland as these fields have been used for sheep grazing since the Middle Ages and possibly longer.St Augustine's Priory and Barn is just over the hill. The Bronze Age burial site on the headland shows how valuable this piece of the coast was.I guess if you wanted to find an ideal farming and fishing spot that was easy to defend this could be it.




There were quite a few sheep and cattle grazing but appeared fairly docile! Always a bit worried by the cattle especially the horns.










We actually finished this walk enjoying lunch on a wall in the sunshine overlooking the sea towards the Welsh coast. A quick romp around the boggy marshland at St Thomas's Point a MOD restricted area and back along the top.



This is the view out towards the salt marshes at St Thomas's Point. It was so quiet here you could hear the sheep.


Back towards the old pier at Weston Super Mare. Sadly, fallen into disrepair.


The path back to civilisation, not for the faint hearted. It wasn't that bad just muddy.

A walk we would highly recommend, beautiful views but go early the car park gets crowded and wear boots.







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