Rye Harbour to Camber Sands Walk
Rye Harbour
Once up on a time you wouldn't have been able to do much of this walk, as most of the land below Rye would have be under water. In the past few centuries, however, the sea has receded leaving Rye Harbour high and dry and a stretch of salt marsh below that stretches down to the dunes of Camber Sands in one direction and to the Rye Harbour Nature Reserve in the other. The area as a whole is one of the most important conservation sites in the country, with an array of different coastal habitats from shingle to saltmarsh to saline lagoons and reedbeds. It's a wonderful place to walk, starting from the modern-day town harbour and heading south along the silty river, famous for its colonies of little, common and Sandwich terns; follow the path down to the beach and if you're lucky you may spot ringed plovers, avocets, oystercatchers, redshanks, lapwings and wheaters along the way; you may also come across marsh frogs, badgers, bats and other species in this SSSi, before doubling back to take in the low-rise ruins of Camber Castle, built by Henry VIII to protect the key port of Rye from foreign armies. Once back in Rye itself you can continue the walk by heading back across the marshes to the dunes and beautiful beach at Camber Sands, where you can stop off for something to eat.
