Overgrown boardwalk

There’s a lovely little footbridge crossing a small stream as it opens onto our local beach, where the council has planted reed beds and constructed a small boardwalk to run alongside and under the (rather low) bridge .

In just the handful of years I’ve now lived here the reeds have grown, closed in around and under the bridge, blocking off the little landing that was on one side of the stream, making it a slightly-less-inviting place to wander. Which is a shame, because it’s lovely: coming down some steps on the side of the little bridge, the boardwalk pushes under the arch and out overlooking the beach.

It’s a picturesque scene that most people seem to just wander on past, either on their way along the coastal path or, more often, down onto the beach itself. The beach is obviously wonderful but such effort obviously went into setting up this ‘scene’ originally and it often strikes me how overlooked or ignored it seems to be. 

Visiting again when I took the above photograph, on a wander along the coast where I challenged myself to only use my three Contax G lenses on the Fuji X-Pro2, that mild neglect seemed brought to life in the overgrowth of the reeds, encroaching more and more onto the boardwalk – and even through it now from underneath.

Below are a couple of photos from a much earlier visit, on New Year's Eve, 2020:

Back then the reeds were a bit more under control. You can also see a bit more of the bridge in the first photo, which is just a nice little detail on an otherwise-pretty-normal path along the edge of the beach.

The image below shows how it opens up nicely onto the beach, with the stream flowing out over the sand.

This is one of those nice little detail spots for me, one that lifts me a little each time I pass and one that I might eventually begin building a small series of images exploring.