Starting at the Martello Tower at the end of the last walk…
…the nice tarmac path follows the bank of the River Rother down to the sea.
Most of this walk today is around Rye Harbour Nature Reserve, which is a large area of mostly salt marsh. Surprisingly it has been built up by the sea over the last couple of hundred years - the Martello Tower was built on the shoreline of the day!
Beside the path is a Discovery Centre with exhibitions, loos, cafe, etc.
Here is the view across the wetlands…
A couple of minutes further on is this distinctive hut…
Apparently the ‘red roofed hut’ is a bit of a local icon and is a privately-owned fishing hut. It’s age is unknown but it dates to sometime before 1900.
Also down here are a couple of WW2 pillboxes…
Reaching the mouth of the river I get an excellent low-tide view of Camber Sands where I walked last time…
From the river mouth I turn right along the path that runs between the beach and the nature reserve. The beach curves away into the distance and the cliffs that are between Fairlight and Hastings.
A short walk down the path and I come to a bird hide and some birds in a lake. I consult the handy notice board and am reasonably confident in identifying them as cormorants! Possibly.
I think this may be the first actual wildlife, that isn’t a seagull, that I’ve seen in a nature reserve on this entire journey!
Anyway, moving on.
Five minutes later I come across a ruined building. As I approach I think it might be another pillbox, but there is an information board that identifies it as Gasson’s Ruin - named after the family that used to own it. Looks like it might be a bit bleak living here in the winter!
Another five minutes on, I arrive at another building. This one is just derelict, rather than an actual ruin! It is an old lifeboat station that once housed the Mary Stanford lifeboat. As the info board explains, this was the scene of the worst disaster in the long history of the RNLI…
I continue along the path for another twenty-odd minutes which brings me to Winchelsea Beach and my finish point for today, the splendidly-named Dogs Hill Road!
As I said, just a short walk today, but plenty of things to see!
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