The Grove Ferry Inn, walk through the nature reserve and some pictures

My day off yesterday and a very warm day it was too, our days off are relatively short because of having to pick the children up from school, this combined with not wanting to drive very far, mainly for environmental considerations means making the most of what’s local to us.

Grove ferry is about 6 miles from Ramsgate and offers good food, wi-fi and children’s outdoor play facilities at the Inn or good picnic facilities, toilets, parking, limited – but improved - disabled access to view the nature reserve, plenty of walking by the river and through the nature reserve.

We haven’t been there for some time and the Inn must be under new ownership as the food was excellent and greatly improved on our previous visit, we both had a steak baguette and a drink total cost about £17.

We didn’t have the children with us but children’s meals on the menu were about £5 so we will go back there with them soon.

Something that is always difficult here in Thanet is finding enough destinations, with something to do for all the family that fits within a fairly limited budget, particularly when you don’t have time to drive far.

I wouldn’t say that we are foodies, we hardly ever eat out in the evening, but about once a month like to have a fairly light lunch somewhere, preferably where there is something to do.

I am afraid that I didn’t take a telephoto lens with me so such birds that I managed to photograph were those that put themselves in front and pretty much posed for me.

Click on the links for the pictures, they are uploading as I write (10.45 am) so you may have to wait for them all to appear.

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/410b/id16.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/410b/id17.htm

http://www.michaelsbookshop.com/410b/id18.htm

Anyway if you want to look at birds the best local blog that I know of for this is http://dylanofdumpton.blogspot.com/ and the best local website http://www.planetthanet.org/

What you get here is just a walk with me snapping away at what’s there, often without breaking my stride, my contention being that while shown other peoples holiday snaps is enough to turn the brain to cream cheese, looking at when they aren’t there, particularly with companions with a sense of humour can be quite entertaining, particularly when the bad shots haven’t been deleted.

If you do this as an economy mission the car park costs £1 for all day and there are several good picnic spots.

The bad side to this was the amount of dog mess on the footpaths, frankly as bad as the Thanet towns, this surprised me as I assumed that people who made for the countryside would be more responsible. If you walk and take snaps it is a serious hazard, children would definitely need wellies.

I did take some pictures of the rubbish on the paths but to be fair here I believe this is mostly deposited by the river.

There was some sort of environmental study going on and the people doing it said the water quality and the health of the fish was pretty good, as some of our drinking water comes from this river this is important.

One thing that did surprise me was the environment agency notice in Polish, there wasn’t one in English so I don’t know what it says.