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squiz Member Member#: 6644 Location: Registered: 27-05-2007 Diary Entries: 3070 |
26th May 2023 Hiking - Walking: Fullers Mill and Lackford Lakes Wind Direction: Wind Stength: Surf / Sea State: Air Temperature: Sea Temperature: Weather: sunny and warm` Max Speed: Distance Covered: 6 miles (Nautical Miles - unless stated otherwise) Friday 26th May - walks ***** 1. Fullers Mill and 2. Lackford Lakes - sunny and warm. Walk 1 - Gardens at Fullers Mill and along River Lark for a picnic lunch. It is our 44th wedding anniversary today and our original plan was to drive over to visit the gardens at Helmingham Hall kindly to be paid for by an old friend for our joint birthdays. Luckily Mag checked before we left and discovered they are closed on Fridays; she then searched the internet for an alternative and found Fullers Mill Gardens at West Stow just outside of Bury St. Edmunds which sounded perfect. It was a 50-mile drive but they did not open until 11 so we had breakfast at home before leaving Felixstowe at 10, it took just over an hour to get there due to roadworks on the A 14, the traffic jams were soon forgotten as we approached our destination which was set in the Kings Forest with the fast flowing River Lark running through the middle, just idyllic especially as we had perfect weather, warm with wall to wall sunshine:) They are run by Perennial Gardens with a very reasonable entrance fee of ?7 and this is what the leaflet says ? Fullers Mill is an enchanting seven-acre creation on the banks of the River lark. It combines a beautiful site of light dappled woodland with a plantmans collection of unusual shrubs, perennials, lillies and marginal plants. It is a garden of truly year-round interest ? and we were not disappointed as it was absolutely stunning and well worth a visit especially this time of year as it was in full bloom, just perfect:) A Bernard Tickner spent 50 years creating the garden which was gifted to Perennial after his death. The little carpark was already pretty full with mainly pensioners many already enjoying tea and cake outside on the lawn! In the end we did two circuits of the gardens 5 sections with meandering paths everywhere with unusual colourful plants and trees around every corner, all in full bloom, along with the River Lark, plus stream, ponds and one of Lackford Lakes too with an amazing number of bight blue and red damsel fly?s, dragon fly?s plus a family of swans on the river, I got some lovely pics too. As picnics are not allowed on the site we returned to the van for the rucksack and set off through the Kings Forest and soon reached a path that ran along the river which we followed for about a mile with pine trees to the left and the Lark to the right, past the smelly sewage works we found a fantastic spot for our picnic lunch over a small bridge at Clough Staunch with geese flying overhead from the nearby Lackford Lakes and a Grey Wagtail bobbing about. We ambled back up through the pine woods with a carpet of fern, we even spotted a deer. Back at the van we were surprised to have walked three miles and the day was still young so we drove around to Lackford Lakes for the second part of our adventure. Fuller Mill Garden Walk 2 - Suffolk Wildlife Trust at Lackford Lakes. We have been to Lackford Lakes a couple of times before which is run by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust and is free to enter and is a wildlife oasis with a landscape of lakes, reeds, meadow and woodland, a birdwatcher?s mecca! Starting off at the visitor?s centre taking the green East Lakes Trail and soon saw a man with a camera pointed at a tree, we stopped and asked what he had spotted and he pointed out a Lesser Spotted woodpeckers nest hole in a tree, quite low down too. You could hear the young calling and the man said the adults returned about every ten minutes so was waited and were lucky enough to see them twice and amazing it was too. We then continued all the way to the end passing Hawker Pool, Plover Lake and finally stopping at Steggils hide by Wilsons Flood, Mag had already got wet feet trying to get a closer look at some geese! A squirrel whizzed past before we entered the hide and we were then treated to a vat display of wildlife, a family of Egyptian geese swam past, two grebes were busy building a nest as were some black headed gulls, sheep with lambs were grazing nearby, a jackaw with a heron landing too, just brilliant, the only downside being a keen breeze from the NE blowing into the hide. Then back past Flempton golf course seeing a pair of swans with 7 young, turning right to check out a couple more hides Before doing the Kingfisher trail after seeing a nuthatch on a tree stump, sadly no kingfishers but another preening heron and a muntjac deer and back to the van knackered after walking another 3 miles with buzzards overhead too. We had a very welcome cuppa and celebratory anniversary cake before attempting the long drive home. We were held up again on the A 14 but that did not spoil the absolutely amazing day we had enjoyed, just perfect we loved every minute:) Lackford Lakes Photo Album here |
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