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Horsey seals

16th December 2019 By trish

Horsey seals

In our view there can be no more uplifting sight than the colony of grey seals at Horsey, just a few miles round the coast from Norfolk Beach Chalets. The colony is in permanent residence at Horsey. The magic happens November through to January when the beach is transformed by the cute white fluffy pups basking on the shoreline with their mums. At the time of writing this blog in December 2019 nearly 2,100 pups have been born at the colony this season.

The charity Friends of Horsey Seals was set up in 2011 to protect the grey seals, particularly during the pup season when hoards of people flock to see the seals. Friendly, informative, volunteer seal wardens keep a close eye to ensure safety of the seals and visitors – understandably the mums are very protective of their pups.

It is a photographer and nature lover’s dream and fabulous for the children.

We visited early morning to avoid the crowds when the seal wardens were busy trying to relocate several seals which had strayed into various odd places, including a nearby field and the access road!

This guy clearly hadn’t read the signage!

Your dogs are welcome, but please do keep your dog on a short lead.

There is no admission charge to visit, save a car park charge. Contributions to the Friends of Horsey Seals charity will be happily accepted.

http://www.friendsofhorseyseals.co.uk

The Ingham Swan

13th December 2019 By trish

The Ingham Swan

If you are looking to enjoy a very special meal, just a short drive from Norfolk Beach Chalets, be sure to book yourself into The Ingham Swan for a relaxed, but high class experience.

In September 2017 the restaurant suffered a terrible fire which completely gutted the building. After 18 months we were delighted when the doors were reopened in March 2019 following a massive restoration and refurbishment but have only recently had the chance to visit. It was well worth the wait!

We knew to expect great food as the chef patron is Daniel Smith, who grew up in Norfolk and has appeared on Great British Menu and head chef Alex Clare won the EDP Norfolk Chef of the Year 2017.

There was not an empty table in sight, so we were glad to have booked our Saturday lunch in advance. The restaurant, although split into a few rooms, felt warm and cosy on a winter afternoon with a lovely woodburner and lots of old world charm as you would expect from such a beautiful venue.

We picked from the lunch du jour -planning to stick to two courses, but greed got the better of us and we managed to manfully work our way through three courses.

Nice touches of “pre starters” and warm freshly baked bread always make us happy, and catering for a gluten free eater appeared to cause no issue for the kitchen who made some appropriate adjustments.

Mark’s highlight was the melt in the mouth chicken liver parfait, which indeed tasted sublime, but Trish was blown away by her dessert of affogato with white chocolate mousse.

The Swan is not a low cost dining option, but very special and worthy of a visit for an occasion or treat night out…

http://www.theinghamswan.co.uk

2019 – The summer of the sandscaping

11th December 2019 By trish

2019 – The summer of the sandscaping

July and August saw our usually sleepy village hit the national news headlines!

The long awaited, pioneering sandscaping project brought the tv cameras and visitors flocking to view the transformation of our coastline, which involved piping in and placing 1.8 million cubic metres of sand on the beaches starting from the gas terminal and stretching round to Walcott. The villages of Walcott and Bacton have suffered terribly over recent winters with homes being lost and serious flooding. This innovative project in Bacton is the first in the UK, but has been successful in the Netherlands – no doubt many eyes will be watching developments very closely.

The work was fast paced and fascinating to watch – the sand being dredged from specific locations onto a massive vessel “The Ham” which then piped the sand onto the beach. The sand was then physically moved around by heavy plant into place.

The visual change to the beach is enormous. We have lost the “apron” of concrete which served as an informal promenade and the wooden sea defences are now largely buried beneath sand. This means you can walk interrupted for miles and at low tide beach is now enormous, and even accessible still at high tide. At the time of writing this blog in early December, the beach is holding well – sand has shifted around as was expected for the first 2 years or so, but there have been no disasters as had been occurring regularly in Winter.

Many of our guests have commented how much more enjoyable and accessible to beach is – let’s all hope it will continue to hold back the tide for as long as possible…..