Sun, Sea & Safari: Notes From The English Seaside
A short walk from our home – in fact, a very short walk, less a mile – is a dead end ditch-lined track known as Braggs Lane, which winds its way through farm fields to the edge of the woods between Herne Bay and Canterbury. The dead end is at what is known as Bleangate, one of the main entrances for hikers and ramblers to enter Blean Woods.
Blean Woods, a large area of ancient woodland dating back centuries, is a designated area of special scientific interest due to its unique ecology and flora and fauna. Crossing through the centre of the woodland is a droveway which has been traced to have been a major thoroughfare almost a thousand years ago, known by the name of The Radfall and believed to have been a trade route running from the Thames estuary to Dover. Over the last couple of years the Kent Wildlife Trust has initiated a fascinating wilding programme to restore certain elements of the woodland.
To help return the woodland to something akin to its original habitat where indigenous plants thrive and invasive species do not, three different mammals have been introduced to the environment and released into the wild. These are Iron Age pigs, Exmoor ponies and, most interesting of all, European bison.
On the occasions we have been at home over the last couple of years, we have several times wandered through Blean Woods in the hope of catching a glimpse of the bison, always without success. Until this week, that is, when, towards the middle of the walkway, we spy a couple of the lumbering beasts lurking amongst the trees munching their way through grasses and undergrowth.
As we watch, more appear, until five are just a few feet away the other side of an electric fence. We find out just how lucky we are when one of the Rangers pulls up in her jeep a few minutes later and explains that the bison only rarely venture to the edge of their territory and, what’s more, that there are only six of them altogether – and we’ve seen five in one go! Maybe we’ll see the pigs next time…
The much delayed feel of summer finally arrived in England this week with properly sun soaked days beneath clear blue skies. A seaside town such as Herne Bay, close to where we live, thrives on days like this, particularly at weekends. English seaside resorts have a shared history of burgeoning popularity during Victorian times followed by sustained patronage right up until the early 1970s when package holidays began to shrink the world and Mediterranean sunshine was suddenly within easy reach.
Cue a hasty decline suffered by all but a handful of lucky – or perhaps deserving – resorts, triggering a descent towards decay and dereliction. Many such places became a sad shadow of their former selves in their heyday. Thankfully many, including most Kentish resorts, are well on the way back to recovery, thoughtful progress replacing slow decline.
Herne Bay is one such, though is doing so without aiming for the upscale, more highly priced destinations like, for instance, its near neighbour of Whitstable. Instead, Herne Bay seems to revel in nostalgia: we have proper fish and chip shops, ice cream parlours and even a pie and mash shop. The pier, or what is left of it after the rest of it was lost in a storm in 1978, is home to cafes, traditional attractions such as merry-go-rounds, helter skelters and hook-a-duck, and even “Beer On The Pier”, a micro pub run by a local family brewery.
The town centre houses a small but amusing museum to continue the nostalgia theme: yep, this is a “Seaside Museum”, featuring everything that was great about a good old English seaside resort, from candy floss to bawdy postcards. Herne Bay is by no means the finished article but, judging by the amount of visitors on the first summer’s day of the year, it is winning back its popularity with commendable aplomb.
All this and then bison as well, just down the road.
44 Comments
restlessjo
You need never travel again? 😁🩵
Phil & Michaela
Ah except our sunshine is notoriously temporary!
Heyjude
First time you have shown your garden I think. Very nice palm there! So who looks after it whilst you are away? I’m guessing from the empty pots that it’s low maintenance. Nice facts about the seaside resort and the revival of such places, though not sure who it is aimed at. Pie and mash? Really? I’m glad to see the bison are fenced off from the track! I wouldn’t want one of those chasing me!
Phil & Michaela
Ah well, Jude. Before retirement our garden was full of colour, bedding plants, borders, hanging baskets and tubs, but now we’re hardly here it’s all shrubbery and ferns. We have a guy (a fellow local at the pub, you might have guessed!), keep everything trim whilst we’re travelling. As for pie and mash, well…the resorts round here (Herne Bay, Margate, Broadstairs) have long been popular day trips for Londoners, and of course pie and mash (and liquor and jellied eels) is a London tradition, so the Thanet coast has a long history of “London day out” customs, meaning that pie and mash goes back a long way. And the current incarnation has just moved into larger premises, which tells you something! It’s great to see the town starting to buzz again though, it’s a lot livelier now than it was when we moved here in 2011.
Heyjude
Yeh, I figured it was originally geared up for Londoners on a day out, but I wonder how many Londoners still go for that sort of food. From your comment it appears, a lot!
Annie Berger
Glad you asked the same question I was thinking when I saw the garden and a palm at that, HeyJude.
Alison
Your garden looks very tropical. One thing I do miss about UK summer is the late summer nights and sitting out in the garden.
Bison in the countryside! Great you got so close and still avoided the electric fence. I love seeing the alpacas down the country lane where my nephew lives. Enjoy the summer 😎
Phil & Michaela
The summer lasted about four days, Ali. Back to chilly and grey already. Still, we ate in the garden three nights in a row and that’s a rarity here!
Alison
Maybe an Indian summer coming, but you will probably be in some far and distant land then!
Phil & Michaela
Yep, we’ll still be on our journey through Africa.
Alison
Sounds exciting, you do have itchy feet!
Gilda Baxter
You have bison at your corner of the world? Wow…we only have goats and sheep here.
I am loving this weather, not sure how long is going to last but we are making the most of it.
Many seaside towns have gone into decline, including Bournemouth. Although there are lots of projects in the pipeline here to get things going again.
I am off to Budapest at the weekend, it will be hot 🥵
Phil & Michaela
Enjoy Budapest, Gilda, we loved it! I always felt Bournemouth retained an air of decency and respectability and never really felt downtrodden, whereas the seaside towns over here really got rough for a while. Enjoy the spas in Budapest!
Lynette d'Arty-Cross
It’s wonderful that the European bison are being re-introduced after their near extinction and that they are an integral part of the Blean Woods recovery program. How great that you were able to see five of the six!
Phil & Michaela
Unexpected too!
Toonsarah
Amazing, I never knew there were bison in Kent – nor Exmoor ponies come to that! And I didn’t know Iron Age pigs were even a thing, these days at least 😆 Herne Bay was one of my early childhood holidays destinations, along with Westgate on Sea, but I haven’t been there in years. It would be good if this hot weather were to continue into next week for our mini Broadstairs break but I fear we’re in for disappointment!
Phil & Michaela
I wonder how much change you would see in Herne Bay since back then.
Travels Through My Lens
Looks like you live in a lovely part of England. It’s always a thrill to see bison. We’ve seen them in Yellowstone and Grand Teton, and it’s always a thrill. We’ve been to the UK many times but have never ventured into the seaside areas until just recently when we visited Cornwall. We loved it and wished we could have lingered longer, but a medical situation cut out time short and forced us back to Paris. Maybe we’ll get back someday.
Phil & Michaela
Cornwall is my spiritual home and I absolutely love every minute I spend there. Yes, go back and see more!
Helen Devries
Very glad that Herne Bay has not attracted the DFL crowd and stays loyal to pie and mash!
Phil & Michaela
😃👍
Latitude Adjustment: A Tale of Two Wanderers
Jellied eels? Oh my!
Phil & Michaela
Don’t knock it till you try it!
Suzanne@PictureRetirement
Your garden looks exactly like ours – low maintenance!
Phil & Michaela
Essential for travellers!
Monkey's Tale
Funny to see bison in the trees. Here, our bison are out on the plains, I never even considered they would live in a forest. Herne Bay does look like its straight out of the 70s, which makes it much more appealing to me. I wonder why, when they have a great name, Beer on the Pier, that the other sign is so awkward, ‘Oh I do like a beer by the seaside’. Why not ‘Oh I do like a beer of the pier’? I’m sure you enjoyed a beer on the pier while you were there. Maggie
Phil & Michaela
Hi Maggie, I’ve only just found this comment hidden amongst spam. As for the sign, it’s a pun on a much loved old English song, “Oh I do like to be beside the seaside”…hence………”Oh I do like a beer beside the seaside”. I guess you have to know the song to make it work!
Monkey's Tale
Oh, I thought they had poor marketers 😊
WanderingCanadians
Great timing! Glad to hear that you finally got to see the bison. And so up close too! The European bison look a bit different compared to the wood and plains bison we have here in North America.
Phil & Michaela
And unique here!
grandmisadventures
How lucky to get to see 5 of the bison all so close! Looks like a beautiful place for a walk in the woods and then a walk along shore 🙂
Phil & Michaela
Well it’s not too bad 😀
Lookoom
Bison are very shy, and it took me a long time to finally see some in Canada’s Northwest Territories, where a huge nature park is dedicated to them. Too huge to find bison easily. Now that we know how our ancestors behaved towards them, it’s understandable that the ones that survived weren’t the most conspicuous.
Phil & Michaela
We felt rather privileged!
wetanddustyroads
The bison are beautiful (animals we haven’t seen before). I’m glad the English summer has finally arrived – the sea and beach just look merrier with the blue sky above. And I like your garden corner (I hope you guys can sometimes sit there and enjoy the sun in the summer).
Phil & Michaela
Africa will be better 😊
wetanddustyroads
Well, you’re definitely not going to see bison, but I can guarantee you you’re going to see a huge variety of other wild animals!
Image Earth Travel
Wow, so much sunshine!
I’ve been in Somerset since the 6th of June and have barely seen the sun. 🙁
Phil & Michaela
Oh it didn’t last long, Nilla – about four days to be precise! Back to grey and miserable since then!
leightontravels
Such a lovely area to have on your doorstep. I’m sure Blean Woods would be a place I’d regularly escape to in all seasons weather-permitting. Wild exmoor ponies, how fabulous! It seems to be looking at you with curiosity, are they reasonably tame or did it bolt off moments later? I would probably donate a finger right now in exchange for some authentic pie and mash.
Phil & Michaela
He/she casually wandered away as if we weren’t there. Same with the bison. We were more interested in them than they were in us!
Annie Berger
Thoroughly enjoyed reading your post from close to home, Phil. Lucky you having such a fabulous walking area like Blean Wood so close by in addition to Herne Bay and it’s amusements. Was gobsmacked to learn about bison in England as I never realized there was such a thing as European bison.
Phil & Michaela
They’re a recent reintroduction in England centuries after the last one died. Good to see them too!
kertnekd
Systematically extinction of every living being through monotheism! No one giving a shit, especially the ecologists! https://echterevolution.wordpress.com