Log No 346. Sun 15th Jun 2014 - Southwold to Kessingland, 12 miles (5311 miles walked)

Well it was a real lazy start today as I didn't leave until 10.00, it was still cloudy but dry and I walked on the sand dunes into Southwold. The beach had some sand so hopefully that is the end of the shingles for a while at least.

Southwold has a pier and a lighthouse but with no headland the lighthouse is actually in the village.

There was no coastal footpath shown on the map so on leaving Southwold I followed the route of the Suffolk Coast Path.

It came inland to the adjacent village of Reydon and took a minor road and footpaths along field boundaries to come north onto the B1127.

This was quite a busy road with no verges but I wasn't on it long before I got onto a footpath in a nature reserve through the marshland of Easton Broad. The map showed this as still being the SCP but none of the way markers did.

Coming out of the marshland it was back into farmland and walking on a farm track I disturbed a diminutive muntjac deer, it was that small it had to keep jumping to see over the top of the wheat crop it was running through. This was the first deer I have seen this year.

This section of footpaths was not nearly so well maintained and I went off course once. Once the path got back to the road I was back on the SCP, it must have taken a route to avoid the marshland since a notice said the area was subject to tidal flooding.

The SCP got back to the coast and went through the dunes to Kessingland.

I didn't see anything of the village as I went straight onto the sea front, not that I could see the sea as it was a very wide expanse of dunes.

The SCP turned inland again but I found myself stuck at the bottom of cliffs, the access steps back up were private and locked so I had to persevere through the dunes until I came to some steps with public access.

I had no idea of exactly where I was but it turned out these steps were right by the Heathland Beach Caravan Park where Mick had been offered a free pitch for me.

With all the zig-zagging I had walked further than I had expected and done 12 miles in the 5 hours, it was just a pleasant stroll.

The day had been dry with just the odd spots of rain but there was a brief shower early in the evening.