Happisburgh Lighthouse, Beach and Cliffs

21/6/2010

The sun has finally emerged from whatever cloud it was lurking behind and is once again embracing us in its sauna like death grip giving us the most fantastic heatwave, it is most definitely shorts and ice cream weather.

On Monday evening I had a sudden craving to go to the beach, I chose to go to Happisburgh (pronounce haze-burgh) because its relatively close to me, but I don't think I've ever actually been there.

Happisburgh is one of those villages that is ravaged by coastal erosion, the beach is littered with massive concrete boulders that are the remnants of a ramp that used to lead directly on to the beach that has long since crumbled into the sea as the cliffs recede. Houses that are now only metres from the cliff edge lay deserted, and the road that used to go to the beach now comes to an abrupt end at the edge of the cliff. In 10-15 years quite a big portion of Happisburgh will fall into the sea and cease to exist.

It was a beautiful evening to take photos, and I saw several people with far superior cameras to mine who I silently envied. *sigh*. We walked along the cliff top path and then headed down to the beach, the remains of the old path now lay on the beach, and the new way down to the beach is to go down a ricketty set of a stairs that look as though a single gust of wind would make the tower collapse like a game of jenga. I went with Joe, who got angry with me for taking to long to take photos, we almost got drenched by a rogue wave but we managed to out run it just in time.

The lighthouse that dominates the surrounding landscape

Happisburgh beach from the cliff tops

Dead end: this is end of the road that runs through the village

Collapsed concrete path on the cliffs and beach

View of beach from the campsite

Camp site on top of the cliffs

This is how you now get on to the beach

New posts, you can clearly sea the old posts that have rotted away and had to be replaced

Broken path

Lighthouse