Visiting the seals 2011

We did this trip about a month ago and I snagged this post from my other blog, I hope you don’t mind!

You may remember last year around about this time we went to see the seals at Horsey.  Well as it was such a lovely day yesterday (Wednesday), after work we all clambered into the car and drove the 15 miles to Horsey again.  On looking back at last years blog I noted that we were a couple of weeks earlier this year.  It is always a bit hit and miss, not really knowing if there are going to be any there or not but last week the crew of Royall Courier managed to get through Potter Heigham bridge and walked over from Horsey Mill to the coast and reported that they had seen numbers of anything up to 600.  We parked a bit nearer to the beach than Horsey Mill because as it was in the evening we didn’t want to run the risk of being locked in the National Trust car park, plus Nigel being a bit tight didn’t want to pay the parking fee! 

The dogs enjoyed a roar round along the long track leading up to the gap in the sea wall, sniffing about for bunnies and just before we arrived at the dunes, I made sure they were securely on their leads.  We made our way over the steps on to the viewing platform and as luck would have it below us were several groups of seals basking in the evening sunlight. 

We made our way onto the beach and took it in turns holding the dogs so we could each get a closer look.  The pups were a fair size now and there were the most amazing variety of colours, ranging from all one colour of dark grey, cream and brown to allsorts of dappled, dalmation type colours and even one very rusty coloured pup.  There were also various ones bobbing about in the sea, lazily swimming in and out of the surf. 

At a rough count there must have been about 200 in total. On the evening air the soothing musical song of the seals could easily be heard as they playfully rolled about on the beach, play fighting, and jostling about for the best spots.  We watched them for ages and then reluctantly made our way off the beach back to the car, still hearing their distant lyrical calls to each other.  As we made our way back along the track, the sun went down quite rapidly but leaving the most amazing sunset which Norfolk is so very famous for.