After living a quarter of a century on these hallowed shores, I’ve decided it’s about time to focus on the beach. I love the beach and I especially love sandy ones. I spend the summer on an island going to the beach every day. My favourite writing retreat in Ireland, Anam Cara, has access to long beach walks. I’m always happy when I’m walking along the shoreline. So the fact that I have never in all these years found a beach I love here in England is really ridiculous. So I’ve taken a new oath – to seek out all the best beaches on this island of ours, and what better time to do it than the May Bank Holiday?
My first discovery on this quest is Camber Sands, East Sussex. Less than a 2 hour drive from London and with a surprising lack of traffic, we were there in no time and took a leisurely pace. Camber Sands is near Rye and Hastings, a bit of the country we had been to before, especially when the kids were younger and we were on the all-things-historical tours. But we had never been to this part of the coast before, and my God, what we were missing!
You turn off the main road onto a small slip road, drive past the prerequisite pubs and fish and chip shops. On your right is a row of grassy dunes so high you can’t see what’s on the other side, but there are wooden signs and arrows saying ‘To the Beach.’ At the end of the road, a big car park with some more snack bars and public toilets. So far, so ordinary. But then you walk onto the beach and you see this:
This beach stretched on for miles and miles and it didn’t take long before the crowds thinned out and it felt like we had much of it to ourselves. I’ve been lucky enough to spend time on beaches which stretched on and on into the distance. But what made Camber Sands different was this:
Behind us, high hill-like dunes, dotted with grass and rolling with lots of little areas to sit and hide away from the wind. But in front, seemingly miles of sand before you hit the tide line. It looked like we could have run forever before we reached it. Just beautiful — and to think it took me 25 years to find this.
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