July 9 - Today we headed northeast of Kirton to the Lincolnshire coastline. On the way, we drove through the Lincolnshire wolds (which is a hilly area). We’ve learned a few new terms while we’ve been here. Wolds are hills. A Fen (we’re currently staying on the Frampton Fen) is a low and marshy or frequently flooded area of land. A dale is a valley. And our favourite new word is ‘bespoke’. They use that a LOT here. It means ‘individually or custom made’. My friend Julie in Barmby says it generally means something is very high-end.
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| Funny little store in Louth - a market town on the way to the coast. |
Back to today - the wolds were very beautiful, but we couldn’t find a good walking area, so we carried on to the coast, stopping first at Saltfleetby-Theddlethorp National Nature Reserve. How could one not go to a place with such an extravagant name??? It was pretty much a repeat of the Dunes reserve in Norfolk, and a VERY windy day. We walked for awhile along the grasslands to see the sea lavender which is famous in the area - my pictures didn’t turn out very well - too bad. It’s so beautiful and peaceful walking in places like that. Way far out, we could see the surf on the beach - it was ridiculously high due to the crazy winds. Neither one of us has particularly good hair, and the wind did nothing to help the situation. Even further out in the ocean were some floating wind farms, but the camera couldn't capture those.
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| It was incredibly windy out here - kind of exhausting to walk in |
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Trying to capture a picture of the sea lavender out past the heavy grasses
Didn't work too well, but this is a really pretty picture of the sky. |
There are a series of beach towns to visit along this coastline, and all of them have huge tracts of land with mobile home parks on them. I guess it’s an inexpensive way to have a holiday .home near the beach. Most of the towns on the route seemed to end in ‘thorpe’. Mablethorpe, Cleethorpe, Trusthorpe, Theddlethorpe, Hogsthorpe . . . so we figured we’d better figure out what a thorpe is. According to Google, it is a “village or hamlet”. Something else learned. Our final destination for the day was Skegness, which, to be fair, we were warned about. It’s kind of a Las Vegas for kids - mini-golf, ferris wheels, roller coasters, arcades, donkey rides, ice cream, fast food restaurants (I think I counted 9 fish and chip places in one block), fortune tellers, souvenir shops and a LOT of people. There’s also a large beach. We had some fish and chips, walked the main street down to the beach, and left. ‘Nuff said on that one. Not really our kind of place. Mablethorpe was similar, but not quite on the scale of Skegness.
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The beach at Mablethorpe. The wind was howling and the surf was
huge, so not a lot of beachgoers sitting out there. |
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| Mablethorpe - one of the main streets with lots of kiddie amusement traps. |
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| Miles and miles of these all along the coastline. |
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Donkey rides on the beach are a really big deal here in England.
This is at Skegness. |
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| Skegness beach with roller coaster at the far end. |
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| Skegness main street - lots of fish and chip places. |
We drove back through the wolds just because the views are so pretty. Instead of the highway, we took a little one-lane backroad. Those are always guaranteed to get the heart racing two or three times along the way when some big farm vehicle comes screaming around the corner. Today did not disappoint. We’re getting better at it though. By that I mean that I am not gripping the sides of my seat the entire length of the road, and Glen is not cursing and swearing the entire length of the road. It’s almost become fun :-)
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| Fish and chips served with bread and butter. It comes buttered. Quite elegant. |
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