Southport, Ainsdale & Hilbre Island

A few weeks ago, we took a day-trip to Southport and Ainsdale. We weren't terribly excited by Southport, as it was a place more for family entertainment than beach enjoyment, so we moved on to nearby Ainsdale, which had a nice hiking trail through the sand dunes. The thing that's very characteristic of the beaches here (and also very odd to me) is that they are very long, wide and flat. When the tide is out, the sand just goes on and on and on and there are hardly any waves from the ocean because it's such a flat shelf of beach. Subsequently, there seems to be a lot of enthusiasm for kite karting, which is the sport of rolling around in a three-wheeled cart, powered by the wind using a kite. We saw a lot of kite karters on the beach in Ainsdale for some racing event that day.

Taking in the view on Hilbre Island

We also took a day trip to West Kirby, which we heard was quite nice. Luckily, our landlady warned us that we need to be apprised of the tides in West Kirby because the thing to do is to go to Hilbre Island. So, we found out what time we needed to be there and joined the hundreds of people walking across the sand at low tide to check out the views from Hilbre Island on a beautifully sunny day. Turns out that it's a couple mile walk around/over Middle Eye (or middle island) to Hilbre Island. I felt like I was on some pilgrimage across the desert (except it was beach sand, not desert sand). Anyway, it turned out to be well-worth it, as Hilbre Island is quite a charming little island with a few houses and an old abandoned lifeboat station (in use ca. 1840's - 1930's), with views of a distant seal colony and the mouth of the River Dee where it meets the ocean. The only thing that was missing was our packed lunch, which we didn't know in advance to bring. So, we trekked back to West Kirby and found a charming little cafe in which to refuel before we hopped on a train to head back to Liverpool.

Here are some photos I took that weekend: http://picasaweb.google.com/barckhoff/SouthportHilbreIsland