The Lake District is a bit inundated with tourists in the run up to the Bank Holiday at the weekend. We were looking around for somewhere different (and quieter) to go for a walk the other day, and remembered Sandscale Haws, a National Trust nature reserve on the shores of Morecambe Bay near Barrow in Furness.
We’d been once before and loved it, but then sort of forgot about it so it was nice to go back and rediscover it. There’s a small car park, and a large natural pond that hosts rare natterjack toads, and various paths and trails around the sand dunes. And beyond that, you can scramble down onto the beach and follow the coastline for miles.
We walked along the beach ourselves, past stones, shells, the wooden posts of an old jetty, and lots of wildlife. Lots of very dead wildlife: crabs, jellyfish, oystershells, even seagulls. It struck me that however pretty beaches are, they’re just giant graveyards really, with the remains of all the critters that live and thrive in the sea-water beyond.
On a brighter note, we discovered these pretty white flowers strewn across the sand dunes. I wasn’t sure what they were, but the very next day I came across this article on the BBC website about Cumbria’s county flower, the grass-of-parnassus, and realised that was exactly what we’d seen. Apparently they’re making a comeback but still quite rare so I feel very priveleged to have seen them.
FIONA GLASS 