Every beach is precious in its own way but this weekend at Cresswell we found treasures beyond price not just this little shell nor this ‘lobsterweed’ in fact what I thought was a lobster

in the centre of this photo was seaweed masquerading as edibles

but there was much more to this beach than met the eye

just under the surface of the water.  It looks like rocks, doesn’t it?  In N Ireland I’d have said basalt but here in Northumberland?

A little way further along the beach the stuff revealed itself to be

WOOD

Had I not watched BBC’s COAST last week, I might have been ignorant of what exactly I was looking at but they said ANCIENT FOREST used to extend right down the East Coast and way out into what is now the North Sea when we were joined to Continental Europe by a land mass.  So there’s not just wood, there’s LOTS OF WOOD and it’s only visible at certain low tides.

In fact we’ve been walking at Cresswell for years and never seen this before and a lady who was local told us it’s been about 15 years since she saw it last so that is a gem indeed 🙂  People just let their dogs pee on it – seemed somehow irreverant to me 😦 but I daresay that ancient wood thought nothing of it… I thought – ‘Don’t they want to know what it is?  Are they determined to have no curiosity?’  I was snapping photos like a maniac. 

                                                                                                             Me and my shadow 😉

and all the black stuff under the water here is forest and when the tide goes out it feels spongy underfoot – just like peat bog – amazing!  I hope one day I’ll be lucky enough to see it again.

Coquet Island from Cresswell