Salt-flats and autumn sun: a car-free break on Suffolk’s Shotley peninsula

Our special feature on trips with no driving starts with a train, bus and walking of the salty wilderness of southern Suffolk

Five more car-free UK trips

The bus runs right beside the Orwell estuary. There are swans drifting among saltmarshes red with autumn samphire, and oystercatchers digging in the pebbles with their long orange bills. It feels an unlikely place to reach easily by public transport, but I stepped off the train 10 minutes ago, after a rail journey to Ipswich through Dedham Vale, an idyllic corner of rural Suffolk often painted by Constable.

Behind me, the cranes of Felixstowe fade into tawny mist and a seasidey smell rises with the sun from seaweed-swathed beaches. A raised path runs past miles of reeds and meadows. I’ve been exploring East Anglia for decades and the Shotley peninsula, where two mighty estuaries converge at the southern end of Suffolk, may be my favourite corner.