ToursGaGa

About Walberswick beaches, Suffolk

Set on the serenely unspoilt Suffolk coast, Georgian town of Walberswick is a sepia-tinted, English seaside dream. It's a great place for boat trips, windsurfing, canoeing and to emulate and indulge in 1950s-style family holidays. It's also a celebrity magnet: the painter Philip Wilson Steer and architect Charles Rennie Mackintosh lived here, and current Walberswick residents include Emma Freud and her husband Richard Curtis, and film director Paul Greengrass (of Bourne Supremacy fame).

Beach:

Walberswick is home to a long sand-and-shingle beach that is backed by grassy dunes. The village is surrounded by acres of protected marsh and heath land, which are great to explore and add to the charm of the quaint beach.

Beyond the beach:

Coastal Voyager offer the 'Drive of your Life': the private hire of the Coastal Voyager boat. It's an opportunity to experience the excitement of taking total control of the powerful boat, with the help and instruction of a skipper, while exploring the Suffolk coast.

Family fun:

Walberswick's impossibly picturesque little Georgian centre feels charmingly caught in the 1950s. It gets a bit crowded in summer, but you can easily find tranquillity in the nature reserve that follows the River Blyth estuary. Over 400 hectares (1,000 acres), combining reeds, mudflats, meadows and marsh, are protected as an Area of Outstanding National Beauty (AONB) and are home to otter and deer, as well as many birds. The Moo Play Farm (www.mooplayfarm.co.uk) has farm animals to pat and a large play area, and is suitable for children aged up to 12.

This is the capital of crabbing: the World Crabbing Championships are held here every August, when every possible coastal spot is taken up by crab-catching hopefuls (hooks and nets are banned, and crabs are released back into the sea once the winner is declared). Have a practise in the local rockpools.