A lifetime of Islands: Island 129

Scolt Head is a barrier island situated off the North Norfolk coast to the north of Burnham Overy Staithe. It is a national nature reserve and is managed by Natural England, although it is owned by the National Trust and the Norfolk Wildlife Trust. It is a very young island, as it is thought that it only started to form 1,000 years ago and it is still growing in a westerly direction. It is composed of glacial shingle on top of which sand and silt have been deposited. The island can be divided into 4 zones - shingle, intertidal mud and sand flats, sand dunes and salt marsh. Terns nest at the west end of the island in large numbers, in particular sandwich terns but also little, common and a few arctic terns. I visited in August and although the main breeding season was over, there were a few terns flying around. I also saw sea lavender and sea holly in flower, oystercatchers and small heath and wall butterflies.

The hardest part about visiting Scolt Head is trying to find details of the ferry service in advance. According to English Nature ferry times are advertised at Burnham Over Staithe but I could find no contact details for the boatman anywhere online. Eventually after several fruitless phone calls I spoke to a lady from the Harbour Trust, who said it wasn't run by them but that the ferry operates about 2 hours either side of high tide. I booked accommodation in Wells-next-the-Sea Youth Hostel in the hope that I would be able to visit and drove to Burnham Overy Staithe 3 hours before high tide but despite walking up and down the quayside and car park I could see nothing about the ferry, although I could see the ferry boat moored in the harbour. Eventually at 9.30 the Boathouse opened and they had a notice displayed denying all knowledge about the ferry but with the boatman's telephone number, so I rang him and he confirmed that he would be running the ferry that morning. Perhaps English Nature don't want to encourage too many visitors but I would have thought the boatman would like as many visitors as possible in order to make more money, so wonder why the ferry isn't advertised anywhere? The ferry goes from the main quay in Burnham Overy Staithe. In August it was a very popular spot for holidaymakers to launch their dinghies and kayaks or to go crabbing.

There are no facilities on the island at all and the paths are pretty indistinct in places, although you can also walk along the sandy beach that runs along the north of the island. On a calm sunny day it was a lovely place to spend a couple of hours. Lots of people had sailed out there in their own boats or kayaks and there were dozens of them hauled up on the beach at the eastern end of the island but once I walked a couple of hundred metres west 95% of them disappeared and I had the rest of the island to myself.