We hadn’t been to Suffolk either visit the county in general or to catch up with mum and Bart for some time, so this weekend we packed the car with rucksacks and headed up the A12, arriving in Lowestoft in time for breakfast on Saturday.
Fully fed and watered, we stopped off at Norwich for the afternoon, where we visited my old college haunts, drunk coffee in Gentleman’s Walk watching The Puppet Man (who we thought had retired) and bought chess pieces and a model car from Langley’s who now have even more of a selection of diecast cars than they used to.
But, one of the highlights of the weekend (aside from popping around to Ean, Vikki and Boo’s) was walking in the Suffolk countryside yesterday – something we’ve missed since I moved down to Essex. Dunwich Forest held our chosen paths for strolling through the flora and fauna.
Why Dunwich? Well, two reasons really – we’d never been before (and it’s a walk mum and Bart do regularly), and there are now at least 25 Dartmoor ponies walking around the forest, too. Grazing in the newly-created project area, the little horses were brought in by the Suffolk Wildlife Trust from special breeders from the West Country.
A rare breed in the UK, the ponies have had Dunwich Forest as their wild home since December last year, and will help turning the area into a ‘wildlife rich landscape’, according to the Suffolk Wildlife Trust. The Dartmoors’ grazing will be an important management tool in the creation of a New Forest-style landscape, and will be managed by the Forestry Commission.
It made for a more interesting walk certainly. A stroll down any of the forest paths could result in a pair of soft-furred guardians protecting their green-leaved snacks, perfectly amenable to being stroked and cooed over. We counted 17 of the small four-legged beasts, the largest number mum and Bart had seen in all the time they’ve been walking the forest.
But cute though they were, we didn’t want to get stranded in the dark among the pine trees, so once Bart had found the right path back to the car, we called in at The White Hart at Blythburgh for a bite to eat before we pointed the car south and headed for home, in time to enjoy a Sunday evening in Chelmsford.
Although it appeared to be a usual weekend visit to my original home county, it was actually one of old memories, new beginnings and new discoveries (old college visit and The Puppet Man; Ean, Vikki and Boo’s new house; and the pony-filled forest respectively). Maybe even more so than last time, it was good to be back.
