Historic Landguard

After breakfast this morning, Clare and Ann went to the shops, while I walked to Landguard Point and back. Landguard Peninsula is the long flat south eastern headland of the Orwell estuary, a place with military history going back centuries. It's only a hundred miles across the sea to Zeebrugge from here, a key trade route to and from Europe, and potential destination for an invasion from the sea. 

There's a large old military fort, now home to a museum, several machine gun  pill-boxes and old gun emplacements. Nearby there's a new ominous looking building, discreetly fortified with a high fence and checkpoint, the regional headquarters of the Customs and Border Force agencies. Ground behind the shore line once occupied by military encampments is scarred by the foundations of old buildings now covered by sandy grassland down to the shingle beach. Since the whole area was de-militarized, and allowed to go wild again, it's reverted to hosting a host of flora and fauna that are unique to this special ecosystem, and is now a designated nature reserve. 

The eastern shore of the estuary beyond the peninsula is where Britain's largest container port stands, busy day and night all year round. A huge compound of shipping containers marked 'Evergreen' near to the approach road to the fort caught my attention. In one block I counted three hundred stacked containers - six high, ten deep, five wide. I wondered if they were cargo unloaded from the giant ship which got stuck in the Suez Canal which was here only last week.

A hundred metre strip of land above the beach abundant with bushes and low lying briar patches is cordoned off to protect nesting birds that lay their eggs in fairly open ground and rely for protection on camouflaging their eggs. Birds on the ground are hard to spot because their plumage makes them hard to stay focused on when they are walking or running in their native environment. I was unsuccessful at identifying and taking photos of them. It was worthwhile however, as I saw several different butterflies. white, orange and blue. I've seen more butterflies this week in Suffolk as I've seen in Wales this year.

Annie and her lively fourteen year old son Steffan came to lunch. It was a splendid affair with a huge speciality seafood platter for us to share; pickled cockles, winkles, mussels and rollmop herrings, crab and lobster with a sprinkling of black caviar on a huge bed of lettuce, enough for five of us. Annie took Steffan home then later in the afternoon returned with her swimming costume for dip in the sea near Felixstowe pier with Ann and Clare. I was appointed guardian of the clothes and handbags. We walked down to the beach and back. Altogether I covered nine miles today, no wonder I'm ready for early bed!