Tag: brean down

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Brean Down

For Christmas I got a National Trust membership. It’s being a few years since I was last a member, but now looking forward to visiting new places and going back to places we have been to before.

Back in 2016 I did start to keep a note of how much we saved with the membership, but looking back over the blog, I never kept up to date with that, but with this membership I am intending to blog about the visits we do this year and the savings we made.

Brean Down

A natural pier with dramatic cliffs and Victorian fort.

Current saving £32.35

Parking £6.00

Total saving £6.00

Cumulative saving £172.15

Membership cost £133.80

Net cumulative saving £38.35

I have been to Brean Down many times over the years, the last visit was back in 2020. Previous visit to that was literally the day before lockdown.

After parking you can either take the path, or climb the steps, we climbed the steps. Continue reading “Brean Down”

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Back along walking down the seafront

Living in Weston-super-Mare and not being allowed to travel due to Covid-19 restrictions, we often make use of the seafront for our allowed exercise. It’s not as though we never walked there before, but now with limited choices, and only so many times you can walk around the area where we live, it’s nice to pop to the seafront. Its a short drive to the seafront from where we love and it was easy to park close to the seafront. This time we parked at Knightstone Island and popped some money in the meter.

I think for me one of the big changes over the last twelve months in the various lockdowns is how little I use cash now. Before the pandemic I would use cash for the parking at the station (though to be honest more often than not I would use phone parking). I would use cash for buying coffee or snacks. I would even use cash for larger purchases. However with the pandemic my use of cash declined dramatically as mainly I did less, bought less and moved much more to contactless payment.

It was a beautifully clear day, the sun was shining, and it wasn’t too cold. The tide was well in and even the ferry moored at the side of Knightstone Island was floating, something I don’t think I have ever seen happen before.

Generally we don’t see the sea, as the tidal range in Weston is so huge that for most of the day the sea is some distance away. Today as we walked along the seafront, it was high tide.

We walked all the way along the seafront to the old hospital and back again. When we turned back we had in the wind in our faces and it was hard going walking back and felt much much colder.

But soon we got back to the car and headed home for a coffee.

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Walking down the seafront

Living in Weston-super-Mare and not being allowed to travel due to Covid-19 restrictions, we often make use of the seafront for our allowed exercise. It’s not as though we never walked there before, but now with limited choices, and only so many times you can walk around the area where we live, it’s nice to pop to the seafront. Its a short drive to the seafront from where we live and it was easy to park close to the seafront.

Today it was beautifully clear day, the sun was shining, and it wasn’t too cold. However it was quite windy.

You could see clearly over to Brean Down and even further across to Cardiff and Newport in Wales.

There were kite surfers making the most of the strong winds and the high tide.

Generally we don’t see the sea, as the tidal range in Weston is so huge that for most of the day the sea is some distance away. Today as we walked along the seafront, it was high tide, combined with the winds there were waves crashing down onto the sand.

We walked all the way along the seafront to Knightstone Island and Marine Lake. 

Then it was time to turn around and head back to the car to drive home.

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Walking along Brean Down

The last time I had been down to Brean was literally the day before lockdown. We had gone for a walk along the beach and were maintaining our distance from people, but from the news it was apparent that this wasn’t the case on Weston beach.

During lockdown, during our government sanctioned exercise we would cycle down to the beach at Weston and we could see Brean Down in the distance. At the end of May I cycled to Brean, passing The Great Bird Screen of Brean, but didn’t cycle as far as Brean Down.

So as it was a sunny, but windy, day we drove down to Brean to walk along Brean Down. We parked the car in the National Trust car park, and did think that at £5 for the day it was a bit expensive, maybe a reason to become a National Trust member again.

We walked up the steps, which was hard work, I should try and get fitter I think.

On the beach someone was doing some art, a star of somekind we thought. You could only really see it from the top of Brean Down.

It was quite busy, even though it was mid-afternoon and the car parks were quite full.

The tide was out and going out.

As we got to the headland we could see the old fort. Brean Down Fort was constructed in the 1860s as one of the Palmerston Forts to provide protection to the ports of the Bristol Channel, and was decommissioned in 1901. During World War II it was rearmed and used for experimental weapons testing.

The walk was really nice.

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Down at the beach

During my government sanctioned exercise we cycled down to the seafront in Weston-super-Mare. Compared to the a previous visit,  back in the middle of April, it was much busier, but to be honest pretty much deserted.

There were a few people like us doing our exercise, walking, cycling, running. The odd dog walker as well.

In addition there were people kit surfing in the sea.

The council closed all their seafront car parks in an additional move to dissuade casual visitors and at the time of writing they are still closed. So in the end the place is deserted with only a few people exercising.

Just to note that I am following government advice during this national emergency and the photograph was taken during my government sanctioned exercise.