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A walk through the woods

by Claire

I love being outdoors, and I'm very lucky to live close to the beach, park and a short drive from several woodlands. One of my favourites is Eastham country park.

It's a well maintained woodland, that people have used since the 1800's. There used to be a zoo, bear pit, bandstand and hotel along with plenty of those amusements. However, thankfully most of these have gone. The bear pit was open until a few years ago, and several carved wooden bears occupied this space but they have been ravaged by the elements. Also the stairs are quite overgrown and mossy so the gate has now been closed and locked for everyone's safety.

This woodland is well used by dog walkers, joggers, cyclists, families and I always feel safe walking alone here. The paths are usually muddy, even in summer but easily walked. At this time of year the squirrels are very friendly, looking for food, even though there are plenty of beech nuts littering the floor.

At the far end of the park was a huge open field, it was used by kids playing football and dog walkers but they only used a very small area so they fenced off almost half and have planted it with native and endangered trees, they have added grasses and are re-wilding the whole area. Once the trees are established and stronger they will remove the fencing.

There is also a huge bluebell wood, in the spring it is beautiful. Again this is a fenced area, with clear pathways and no dogs allowed on protect the flowers.

One thing I enjoy about walking here is finding unusual dotted about and this walk was no different. This time some local artists had created some alien life forms and spacecraft from horseshoes. They were all spread out around the place with notes to introduce each character and really made people smile as they spotted them.

When we go in December we always look for the trees decorated with pom-poms and garlands. No trip would be complete without a walk along to see the 'trees in the wall' nature doesn't let anything stand in its way.