Landguard Point Felixstowe

It was a lovely sunny morning. "Dad, please Dad, please, can we go to the beach today?" asked Little W. The Missus was wanting to work on Assignment 3 for her course and it was well over a year since we had last been to Felixstowe Beach, so I decided to give her some peace and quiet. But rather than park at the sea-front in the town centre, we went instead to the car park at Landguard Point - here. From Bury St Edmunds, take the A14 all the way. Follow the brown viewpoint signs past the docks and turn right at the traffic lights just before you reach the sea-front. The car park is at the end of Viewpoint Road next to Landguard Fort.

We walked along from there towards the point. In the opposite direction you can see the towering cranes of Felixstowe port and the Harwich Harbour Foot Ferry, which runs between Felixstowe, Harwich and Shotley.

The point is at the mouth of the Orwell and Stour rivers, through which all the sea traffic to and from both Felixstowe and Harwich harbours passes.

"Are my ears red?" asked Little Miss. Yes they were; it was quite a stiff sea-breeze and her ears were cold. Here is the view from the point along the sea-front to the town. As you can see, we had it to ourselves.

The land around the point is a nature reserve and the shingle is being colonised by sea-kale.

I broke off a bit of one of the leaves. Very tasty. I offered it to the kids, but it got the thumbs down from them. Only a few minutes later, though, I got "I'm hungry, Dad. When will lunch be ready?" So after we had completed our circumnavigation of the fort (you can read all about its WWII history here), I bought them something from the Crows Nest Cafe in the car park to keep them going until we got home.

Well they were at the seaside! Oh by the way, if you are interested, you can get a live view of Felixstowe Port from this webcam and you can see more of my pictures here on Flickr