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| "Eyyyy!" |
Most of the time, our walks take us to the Moors. But the other week I went to Grimsby for the first time in my life. Well, actually we went to Cleethorpes, which for some reason is not Grimsby though I got the feeling that the two merged into one another very smoothly. Why choose the Humber’s south bank over the North Yorkshire hills?
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| "Oh, hello!" |
Because every November and December approximately 3,000 grey seals return from the open sea to Lincolnshire’s shore at Donna Nook to give birth to their pups. It wasn’t something to be missed and since there is a footpath from Cleethorpes all the way to Donna Nook, we decided to combine watching the seals with a 21 mile hike.
The footpath runs all the way along the shore. Once you leave Cleethorpes behind, you get a really nice view of one of the two Humber forts. Haile Sand is the fort closer to Lincolnshire and during extremely low tides, some people have walked over to it. Its larger sister (Bull Sand Fort) can be found just off Spurn Point on the Yorkshire-side of the Humber. Both forts were built between 1915 and 1919. During World War II, they were a popular target for German planes because the British spun a net between them to prevent German submarines from entering the Humber. The military abandoned the forts in the mid-fifties. So naturally, John would like to live in it.
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| Seals. Seals everywhere! |
All along the walking path you come across pillboxes, which were built in the 1940s as part of the British WWII anti-invasion preparations. Now they made a nice coffee table for our lunch breaks. The walk itself is very flat and it being along the coast also rather windy. But it is easy terrain to walk on and only very little walking has to be done on actual sand.
At last we made it to the seals! Wardens had put up fences to protect seals and visitors alike. But the seals come right up to the fence, which is great for taking photos, and they seem absolutely unfazed by the many humans exclaiming “Awwwww!”, and “Is that one dead?”. We went on a weekend and it was pretty busy so if you can you should go during the week. Grey seals might well be my favourite hilarious animal. Even when threatening each other, they just look too funny flopping around howling and snorting at each other. That being said, there is a lot of mass to them and I would not want to get on the bad side of one... if I somehow lost my ability to walk with haste. Although the pups look cuddly and cute with their big beady eyes, you should not touch them. Not only can seals bite (they are Britain’s largest living carnivore) but a pup that smells of human or dog might get rejected by its mother.
We only spent about 20 minutes with them because we still had a ten mile walk back to Cleethorpes ahead of us but I want to go back next year and stay for a few days.
The footpath runs all the way along the shore. Once you leave Cleethorpes behind, you get a really nice view of one of the two Humber forts. Haile Sand is the fort closer to Lincolnshire and during extremely low tides, some people have walked over to it. Its larger sister (Bull Sand Fort) can be found just off Spurn Point on the Yorkshire-side of the Humber. Both forts were built between 1915 and 1919. During World War II, they were a popular target for German planes because the British spun a net between them to prevent German submarines from entering the Humber. The military abandoned the forts in the mid-fifties. So naturally, John would like to live in it.
At last we made it to the seals! Wardens had put up fences to protect seals and visitors alike. But the seals come right up to the fence, which is great for taking photos, and they seem absolutely unfazed by the many humans exclaiming “Awwwww!”, and “Is that one dead?”. We went on a weekend and it was pretty busy so if you can you should go during the week. Grey seals might well be my favourite hilarious animal. Even when threatening each other, they just look too funny flopping around howling and snorting at each other. That being said, there is a lot of mass to them and I would not want to get on the bad side of one... if I somehow lost my ability to walk with haste. Although the pups look cuddly and cute with their big beady eyes, you should not touch them. Not only can seals bite (they are Britain’s largest living carnivore) but a pup that smells of human or dog might get rejected by its mother.