Day Two Wednesday 5th July 2023

We travelled to Thorpeness, Sizewell and Aldeburgh.

After a night of pouring rain, we woke to the usual early morning bird sounds except that today it was added to by the cries of seagulls. The weather forecast was for more rain later in the day, so we didn't dawdle about and got out early in the morning sunshine. All our trips today were going to be local and so distances would be short. First stop was to Thorpeness. Here we wanted to visit the Windmill, the 'House in the Clouds', the Mere and the Beach. We parked alongside the Mere (a Mere by the way is just the name for a shallow lake). We walked around the town to the Windmill and the old water tower now converted into a house (in the clouds). Then back to the Mere where we had a coffee and I had Bacon Bap and Anita had a toasted Tea Cake. From here it was a short walk to the beach where we stopped for a while and enjoyed the crashing waves.

Our second stop was at the Sizewell B Nuclear Power Station visitors' center. Although small it held a good selection of displays that fully explained the workings of the power station. Trips around the power station itself take around three weeks to book and so was outside our time frame. From the Power Station we went to the village of Sizewell and drove to its beach. By now it had started to rain and so we decided to return to our base for lunch before heading off for our afternoon trip. In all we had only travelled 15 miles in the morning session.

After lunch we drove south to Aldeburgh. Here there is a collection of pleasant buildings and many small fishing vessels with their own fresh fish shops along the beach. There is also a large lifeboat station. Once we had visited these and tried unsuccessfully to buy some crab for dinner (nobody fished in the bad weather last night) we had an ice cream (me clotted cream and black currant and Anita Café Italian flavours) and then travelled back home having added a whole 10 miles to the day's itinerary.

Central to all our visits today was the village of Aldringham, which we passed through in all directions several times throughout the day.

Total distance travelled 25 miles

In the evening we walked out to the local pub

Tomorrow we are hoping to get to Minsmere RSPB reserve and maybe Dunwich RSPB reserve as well.