Aldeburgh Walk

Aldeburgh is a coastal town and popular seaside resort in Suffolk located on the River Alde with the narrow shingle spit of Orford Ness which is all that stops the river meeting the sea at Aldeburgh. Alde Burgh means "old fort" although this structure, along with much of the Tudor town, has now been lost to the sea. The town is notable for its Blue Flag shingle beach and fisherman huts where freshly caught fish are sold daily.

Details of Walk

• Date of Walk: 19/07/2015

• Distance: 7.97 Miles

• History:

• Car Park: Slaughden Quay (Free) IP15 5NA

• Refreshments: Along the seafront and in town there is a number of very good fish & chip shops

• Photos Taken on Walk

We parked the car at Slaughden Quay which was a thriving port but is now a yacht club and walked along the river wall on the bank of the river Alde. After about 2 miles until we went down some wooden steps heading away from the river towards Aldeburgh. Crossing some fields and footbridges across drain ditches which you get when it is a marshy brought us to a path where we turned left taking us behind an allotment.

The path brought us to gate to a lane, then we entered the recreation ground with a low wall running along the side of the path. We sat down on the grass and had a break and watch a couple of boys flying a kite. We then carried on through the recreation ground where they had a outdoor gym equipment which you so often see nowadays, we both had a go on some of them and now feeling a bit fitter we left the ground.

We went past the fire station. to a main road where we had to turn right and about 75 yards down that road turned left at a footpath sign between houses and across another road to bring us onto another footpath going behind houses and a caravan site. Where there was a path on the right leading to a track across the caravan park, we went left then right on to a permissive path that followed the track bed of an old railway line.

Along this path we had farmland on the left and woodland and marsh on the right and that is where we see these lovely, coloured horses. After 1/2 mile there was a footpath junction and according to the walk, we were following this is where we should have turned right but we did not and carried straight on.

Quite a bit further on we did turn right which took us round the back of Thorpeness boating lake and we were glad we did carry on walking. The reason why because we went right past the famous water tower designed to look like a house on the top covering up the tank . In 1979 it was turned into a five bedroom house which is called House In The Clouds.

When reaching Thorpness it brought back memories when we went there and got a canoe out on to the lake which was the day after Christine's 50th birthday. We had a party at Marks Tey Hotel the night before and stayed at the hotel then travelled to Aldeburgh for the day.

Right but this time we did not get a canoe out and it might have been a bit hard with two dogs as well. We crossed over the road and down on to the shingle beach and headed along the beach to Aldeburgh where you see the fisherman huts, where fresh fish are sold daily. Well, it was not far just through the town and of cause we could not go home without having fish and chips and there is a few to choose from and then it was back to the car park.