"Each step forward has a sacred meaning of its own"   Sri Chinmoy

24 Mile Hike - The Sandlings Walk - July 2025 - Suffolk Coast

With the Across Wales Walk 45 on the horizon I decided to spend my day in Suffolk hiking (and then cooling off with a swim if there was time). I camped at the orchard in Saxmundham - blissfully simply wild camping with the addition of a warm solar shower. Early on the Saturday I headed out into the sunshine to cover a good 20 miles, maybe a bit more, on the Sussex Coast path and the Sandlings Walk, waymarked trails that should be easy to follow with a bit of help from Mapy.cz and OS maps on the web.

I only had to put up with a couple of hundred metres of rather hostile highway before I found the steps down to a path between the fields from the site to Saxmundham. On the way I passed silent fields and an old church, feeling myself sinking into the english countryside with each step.

I was keeping up a brisk walking pace at first, between 3 and 4 miles an hour depending on the path/terrain, with the hope that I would break into a run here and there later on.

After navigating through a sleepy Saxmundham, the path heading south took me through the golden summer fields you'd expect from Suffolk, with big skies, not a lot on the roads, not many people around. It was that somnolent England I remember from summers when I was young, working on farms and hitch hiking to festivals. Strange how you remember the weather as being eternally sunny even though it wasn't! It was a day for going deep into the landscape though so let the mind wander until it fell pretty silent and kept pushing the pace. After all this was a training walk for an endurance event.

The memories of 1976 and endless sunshine got replaced by memories of 1985 and sullen skies with the odd drop of rain, but I was making good progress on some predictably flat terrain. Snape Maltings looked the perfect place for some food so I headed in and queued for something - can't remember what - and decided to loop back this way for lunch too.

The buildings felt a lot older than they probably are, seeing as they have changed from their original use into an art and creativity centre with shops and a cafe!

After that spell on the riverbank I headed inland and into the forested part of the Sandlings, finding the path with help from GPS and making good progress through pine and birch woods.

In places I was wading through ferns, parting them with my hands to find the trail, still seeing hardly anyone around.

At this point, with the sun breaking through now and again but still keeping cool in the forest shade, I started to through in some running and ultra-shuffling to get my speed up for the day. I ran this boardwalk along the fringes of the estuary, taking a long loop back to Snape Maltings from a circuit in the forests further south.

Back at the Estuary the sun came out fully and the landscape became even more dream-like. I was mostly running now, slow-paced but feeling good considering the long time out.I've geniunely lost count of the number of times I've had to take a break from running and be rescued by another sport. Previously it was swimming or cycling or even indoor climbing but this time it's been brisk hiking and I've loved it. The borderline between fast hiking and slow ultra running is pretty debatable and it was great to be back in that no-man's-land between the two.

With the estuary and marshland transformed by the sunlight, this was my favourite part of the hike. Huge dragonglies browsed among the reeds and there was a low hum of insects as I kept up the slow but steady ultra-shuffle back northwards.

I took a different route back, through fields and farms I'd missed on the way down.

The heat was getting intense, these pigs having a good time cooling off.

Passing under the power lines I was struck by their brutalist beauty. They are controversial I know, with so many people opposing the building of any new ones, but I grew up in a village and a district where they were part of the landscape and I never questioned it. These ones had a grandeur that impressed me against the vast Suffolk sky.

Jogging on quiet lanes came next, then more walking through fields and finding tiny paths.

After just over 6 hours I was back north of Saxmundham, retracing my steps to the camp site.

I followed up that hike of 6 hours 18 minutes / 23.65 miles with a swim at Southwold before heading to Sanjaya's place in Ipswich. So long Suffolk, for this year at least.

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