Walberswick, my favourite place in the entire world.

 

It may seem strange that you can travel to the far deserts of Xinjiang in China and walk across the Golden Gate bridge, both of which I have been lucky enough to do, and then state that your favourite place is a primitive campsite smaller than a football pitch, tucked behind a shingle bank in Suffolk. 

I was staying in Walberswick at the weekend, and we borrowed the lovely hut pictured above from my friend Jo. The other picture is from one of the summers that Cro and I spent camping and loafing in the big Bell Tent that we spent a couple of weeks in nearly every summer. You can see that it is ramshackle and not at all snazzy, but it was joyful and glorious and I would like to try to explain why. 

The first thing that makes Walberswick great is that it is right down by the sea shore and it is at the end of a road. Nobody drives through, because you can't, so as soon as the day trippers go, the only sound you can hear is the waves rolling up the shingle. It is probably the best sleep tonic I have ever had, and you know that if you wake up in the middle of the night, that eternal rhythm is still there: Waves rolling  up the shingle, then the retreating roar and rattle of pebbles. I found that as you step onto the stone road that leads to the bridge to the site, you feel a slipping of time from its normal points. It all just slows down and stops being linked to anything finite or confined. Did I mention the mobile signal is awful? A real plus point.

The other thing about the site is that you can only reach it over a bridge, so there are no vehicles on it, unless you count a wheelbarrow as a vehicle. You have to cart all your stuff a couple of hundred yards and then cart it back at the end. But this means that children of any age can wander around safely, and the same goes for dogs. It is wonderfully past the end of civilization. Also, the facilities are, er, limited. There is a tap. That's it. Everything else you have to improvise, so showering involves swimming in the sea and then letting a big bucket of water warm up in the sun and rinsing yourself all over with it. Cooking is on whatever stove you have brought, and sometimes on a bonfire on the beach. 

Bonfires are another reason I love it. Here is a picture from the summer just gone when we met up with friends from the site and burned the last of Cro's Viking boat on the fire one dark clear night.

This was nearly ten o'clock at night but still there is a glow from the late sunset. But already the stars were out filling that dark sky, and if you can wait up until midnight it gets blacker and blacker and more full of stars with each minute. And in August there are shooting stars.

The final thing that makes Walberswick such a favourite place is what you can see in that bonfire photograph. I've been going there for nearly thirty years and I know more than half of the people that I see camping there (and many of the people I see in the pub, for that matter). This temporary village by the coast brings back friends I have known for years but who I mainly see down here in our summer stay. And we have time and leisure to sit back and catch up and make new joy singing around a bonfire or playing tunes together. 

So to sum it up: place, peace and people are what make this place so special for me. And I am so grateful for all the time that I have spent there, with loved ones and also just sitting quietly down on the shore on my own while loved ones slept on. And like the Terminator, I'll be back.