England
Blakeney Point
A shingle spit where grey seals haul out in hundreds beneath enormous skies.
A shingle spit reaches four miles into the North Sea, colonised by grey seals that haul themselves onto the sand in their hundreds beneath skies so wide the clouds seem to start at your feet. Blakeney Point in Norfolk is a nature reserve at the edge of England — a place where land and sea negotiate their boundary twice a day.
Blakeney Point, managed by the National Trust, is one of the largest grey seal breeding colonies in England, with over 4,000 pups born each winter between November and February. The spit's shingle ridges and sand dunes shelter salt marshes and freshwater pools that attract migrating birds — terns breed here in summer, and Brent geese arrive in autumn from Arctic Russia. Boat trips from Morston Quay and Blakeney Harbour run between April and October, passing the seal colonies before landing on the Point's tip. The four-mile walk from Cley Beach along the shingle ridge is an alternative approach, though the terrain is demanding. The village of Blakeney, once a major medieval port, retains its flint-and-brick architecture and a harbour that dries completely at low tide, leaving boats stranded on the mud.
Family
The boat trip to the seal colony is an event children remember for years. Hundreds of seals, pups in winter, terns diving overhead — Norfolk's coast delivering more wildlife than any screen.
Couple
Walk the shingle spit together when the tide is turning and the seals are singing. Return to Blakeney for crab at the harbour and a flint-walled pub as the light softens over the marsh.
- Grey and common seals haul out on the sand spit in colonies of hundreds — the boat trip from Morston Quay gets close enough to smell them.
- The shingle spit extends four miles into the North Sea, accessible on foot at low tide or by boat from Blakeney harbour.
- Tern colonies nest on the point in summer — Arctic, Sandwich, and little terns in numbers that make the air thick with wings.
- The salt marshes behind the point are a watercolour of purple sea lavender in summer — flat, vast, and changing with every tide.
Crab salad at the White Horse in Blakeney, the harbour visible through the window.
Samphire and shrimp from the roadside stalls — Norfolk's coastal currency.
Wasini Island
Kenya
A coral island without cars or roads, reached by dhow through dolphin-thick water.
Lamen Bay
Vanuatu
Dugongs drift through a bay so still the seagrass below goes undisturbed by anything but tides.
Assateague Island
United States
Wild ponies wade through salt marshes on a barrier island thirty miles long.
Celestún
Mexico
Flamingos turning a mangrove estuary pink, outnumbering the fishing village ten to one.
The New Forest
England
Wild ponies drift through ancient woodland where Norman kings once hunted deer.
Grasmere
England
Wordsworth's lake enclosed by fells where the gingerbread recipe is kept in a bank vault.
Windsor
England
A working royal castle where guards still change and the Queen's swans patrol the Thames.
Corfe Castle
England
A shattered Norman fortress split down the middle by Cromwell, still defying the skyline.