A Walk Out to Hilbre Island. . .

Sometimes you never get around to doing the things in your own backyard, but I'm a true believer in making time to be a regular tourist in the city in which you live.  It can be as simple as walking in a different neighbourhood, seeing a temporary exhibition or trying out a new restaurant.  And so I told the Liverpud last week that we were going to do something that he - born and bred in Liverpool - had actually never done before. We were going to walk out to Hilbre Island.

Liverpool is bordered on the southwest by the Mersey.  Across the Mersey is what is known as the Wirral.  And on the other side of that is the River Dee which separates England from Wales. About two miles out from the Wirral are three little islands completely surrounded by water during high tide.  But when it's low tide, there is a window of several hours in which you can walk out and back safely.  In the photo below, you can just about see a few people heading towards the first of the islands in the center - Little Eye - with Little Hilbre (also called Middle Eye) and then Hilbre itself, just to the right.

It was a gorgeous day - bright and sunny but with a nice sea breeze.  Perfect for trying out my new Scollay cardigan for the first time.

Here is Little Eye with Wales in the background.

You walk around Little Eye and then start heading for Little Hilbre.

Little Hilbre is lovely - full of weathered cliffs and rock formations.

And a short grassy path to walk over the top of it.

Once we were on Hilbre Island itself,  the views of Wales get even better.  I was astonished that we could see Llandudno and the Great Orme quite clearly.

Part of the fun was examining all the textures and colours of sand and objects revealed when the tide is out.

There were stranded jellyfish . . .

. . .  water-swirled patterns in the moss and seaweed . . .

. . . and lots of purply-blue, crunchy shells.

This is the end point of Hilbre Island with the sea in the background poised to cover up the path again in a few hours.

The island is also a nature reserve and popular for bird watching.  You can see the houses of West Kirby across the sand and further away, the port of Liverpool.

It was lovely and peaceful walking out to the island and I could have spent several hours just sitting on a rock and knitting.  But alas, you don't want to get trapped at high tide and we had other things planned for the day, so it was time to turn around and head back.

A lovely walk though and so close to home!