Bliss-Girls

My 10-year-old loves marine life and enjoys talking at length about orcas, whales, and fish. When our friends planned a trip to Norfolk and mentioned a beach where we could see seals, we got excited for our son. We started off from London around 7 in the morning, stopped at Birchanger Services for breakfast, and arrived at Horsey gap just after noon.

Most of the drive was along A roads, and we enjoyed the scenic landscape of Norfolk. The green woods and the contrasting vast fields of yellow rapeseed are a spectacular sight during springtime. While I enjoyed the flora, my kids were more excited to see sheep and pig farms.

The weather was lovely when we arrived at Horsey Gap. We were really excited to see the seals in their natural habitat. The sight of the seals was more beautiful than I had imagined. Grey and white seals were sunbathing on the shore, and a few baby seals were playing in the water. The seals looked very huggable, but we were not allowed to go close to them.

At the beach, I got chatting with a seal warden. She was very lovely and shared a lot of information about the seals. She mentioned that seals come ashore to give birth, shed their fur (which they do once a year), or simply to relax. She also said that going too close to the seals could result in mother seals abandoning their pups.

We spent a couple of hours watching the seals, and then we drove to a nearby National Trust site, Horsey Windpump. We didn’t go inside the windpump; instead, we spent much of our time by the mere, taking pictures and enjoying the view. We also had our packed lunch in the garden, and it was a lovely picnic spot.

Horsey Gap and the Windpump are perfect for a lovely weekend getaway. If you are in the UK or planning to visit, add seal watching in Norfolk to your bucket list. If you’ve visited these two places or would like to share more about seals or Norfolk, let me know your experience in the comments.